


Rising Phoenix

by DominaRegina



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27422056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DominaRegina/pseuds/DominaRegina
Summary: Down on her luck, disgraced professor Quistis Trepe meets a friendly young bartender, and finds that her hope in humanity is not yet lost.
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly/Quistis Trepe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Jolt

**Author's Note:**

> The original version of this fic was posted on ff.net over a decade ago. I've decided to improve it and finish it.

Quistis entered the homely bar for the third night in a row. She scanned the tables, social gathering near the pool table, and behind the bar for the familiar bartender who had served her on her previous visits. After not seeing her, or anyone who looked like they might work here, she claimed an unoccupied stool at the counter. 

She had a thought to leave. This wasn’t her scene. She stuck out like a sore thumb. The friendly bartender was probably off for the evening, anyway. But now that she was here and sitting, it would be more awkward to get up and leave. 

Besides, it wasn’t like one employee with a kind smile was the reason she continued to patronize this location.

A thick layer of cigarette smoke hung in the air; clinging particularly close to her bowed crown like a dismal cloud. The business was relatively quiet, save for the 70’s rock playing from the jukebox and the droning of working class middle-aged men commiserating about their jobs. They were the definition of blue collar; grime beneath their fingernails, five o’clock shadows, and sweat from a hard day of laboring in the sun lined their t-shirts.

She spared half a thought to compare stories, but knew better. Socializing was exhausting. She didn’t care to hear their complaints, and they likely didn’t care to hear hers. Nor would they sympathize with her dilemma.

The only reason she was patronizing this establishment was because she didn’t keep alcohol in her apartment, a building that she could not stand to be in all hours of the day. Her profession occupied nearly every waking hour of her day until it was unjustly ripped away. 

With no family and no hobbies to speak of, the only activity she could think of to wile away the evening hours after completing job applications until she turned cross-eyed was the favored pastime of her students, if the stories she overheard before and after classes were to be believed.

For a town with both a well-renowned university and military school, there was surprisingly little else to do. Especially alone.

She shrugged off her leather jacket. The stool had no back. With no desire to hang it on the shared coat rack by the entrance, she folded her jacket in half and laid it across her lap. 

A wooden door from behind the bar creaked open as the bartender came into view, carrying a crate of cheap beer in her thin arms. Her presence lightened Quistis’ mood considerably.

"Back again?" The young woman asked after setting her load down on the counter.

As far as Quistis could tell, she was the only person who worked here. The bartender looked too young to be serving alcohol, but Quistis had a sudden and traumatizing lesson in judging by appearances recently. Nor was she one to voice thoughts that weren’t scholarly in nature.

"Working again?" Quistis countered, looking across the empty space between them. The young woman was all smiles; not once in the few nights Quistis came for a drink had she so much as frowned. Her smile lit up the dimly-lit bar. She was pale, with almond-shaped dark eyes; so dark they were almost black. Unnatural chestnut streaks decorated her fine, raven hair. Compared to the wild colors Quistis saw on campus, the bartender’s hairstyle was modest. 

"Don’t take this the wrong way…” she leaned across the counter and pointed her thumb towards the other patrons. “But you don’t exactly fit in with this crowd.” 

Her breath jostled the locks dangling on either side of Quistis’ face. She smelled of cheap, floral perfume. Pleasant as the smell and her smile were, Quistis disengaged as far back as the stool would allow.

“So what brings you here?" The teen stood upright, leaning against her side of the bar with a curious glint in her eyes. “If you were a social drinker I’m sure I would’ve seen you around before this week. You new to town? Developed a taste for booze? Or do you just like coming to see me?”

The baseless flirting caught Quistis off guard. As with other unanticipated or unwanted advances, she ignored it. Flirting felt less intimidating coming from a smaller, most likely younger woman, but it made her uncomfortable all the same. 

Quistis decided to be blunt. If the line of questioning got too personal for comfort she could just leave. "I got fired."

The server looked Quistis over. It wasn’t the lecherous or judgmental gaze she had grown to anticipate from strangers and colleagues alike. Instead, it felt like a genuine intrigue. Quistis imagined she liked to dissect all of her regular customers before questioning them about their personal lives to see how much she could guess.

"Oh? What was your job?"

"I was a professor," Quistis replied as she began studying the bartender who was speaking to her like she had just noticed the social differences between them for the first time. 

Quistis did not pay much attention to popular name brands or fashion designers, but she always strove to look her best at work. This led her to purchasing whatever expensive new outfits the mannequins at the department stores were wearing. The bartender, while dressed in a tasteful black skirt and top accentuated with a baby blue shawl, reflected the attire of most college students: items thrown together from goodwill or bargain bins. Outfits that were equal parts fashion statement and frugality.

"I taught Calculus and Statistics classes,” Quistis explained despite not being asked. 

“A mathematician, huh?” The bartender pushed her hip off of the counter and began to mix a drink. None of the customers asked for anything, and from what Quistis could tell the others were all drinking beer. 

"That doesn't sound like a job you just get up and fired from," the young woman speculated, spraying some clear liquid into double shot glass.

"Don't piss off the Dean," the former professor retorted. The drink was set down in front of her with a mischievous grin. "What is this?"

"It's called Jolt! My new blend. Try it! It’s delicious and strong."

"What’s in it?” Quistis arched an eyebrow.

“Oh come on! Just try it! I promise you’ll love it.”

Three consecutive nights and she was already convinced she knew what Quistis liked. “I don’t make a habit of putting unknown substances in my body.”

She rolled her eyes. “You must be a ton of fun at parties.” As if Quistis had attended a single party her entire life. “Now take a sip.”

Quistis decided to throw caution to the wind for once in her life. The strict rigidity she forced upon herself all of her life hadn’t exactly done her any favors. Looking into the excited, expecting eyes of this near stranger almost made her wish she had learned to live more spontaneously. If she had, perhaps she might have a better idea of what people did in their leisure time. 

She took the glass and was about to take a sip, but stopped short. She realized she still did not know this woman’s name despite having seen her for three nights in a row."Thank you, Miss…?"

"Rinoa Heartilly. What’s your name?"

The seated woman bowed slightly. "Quistis Trepe."

"Don’t you mean Doctor Quistis Trepe?” The question somehow sounded like a tease, though technically she was correct. Quistis worked hard to earn her PhDs at a staggeringly young age. But she also worked just as hard to be humble. Besides, it wasn’t as if a random bartender cared about her academic accomplishments. Even at the university they amounted to nothing in the end.

“That’s right,” Quistis conceded. Let Rinoa decide how she wanted to address her if they ever saw each other again. 

They spent the next minute assessing each other in awkward silence. Rinoa opened her mouth to say something in hopes of interrupting the strange chemistry, but a gruff voice from the other end of the counter ordered another beer. Heartilly, as he called her, walked over to serve him. Quistis felt her eyes sticking to Rinoa the entire time she was gone. 

Even when dealing with drunken older men, she was as laid back as could be. Rinoa would adjust her top or pull down on the bottom of her skirt as if she didn't notice the stares on her curves. 

Feeling like she was acting just as lecherous as the others, Quistis put her attention back to her drink and her personal problems. She took a tentative sip. Vodka, triple sec, citrus juice, and a splash of club soda. Jolt was strong, but also tasted good going down. Not giving Rinoa the satisfaction of seeing her enjoying the drink she was reluctant to try, she quickly drank the double shot glass and placed it back on the counter.

Bottles clinked beside her. Quistis forced herself not to stare as Rinoa restocked the refrigerator behind her with the crate of beer she brought back. As she stared into her palm, she counted each bottle as it was placed on the shelf. Addition… Quistis considered it the simplest of mathematics. Counting was soothing. Grounding. 

Numbers were numbers. Simple. Dependable. They didn’t change on a whim. They were predictable. Emotionless entities that did not turn her life upside down.

Not long after, Rinoa returned with a damp cleaning cloth in hand, reeking of bleach. She began wiping down the beer stains on the counter. Quistis lifted her forearms and her glass out of the way. 

“You liked my drink, I see,” Rinoa observed while plucking the glass from Quistis’ grip. She dropped it into a sink beneath the counter out of sight. 

“Yes, thank you,” she admitted. 

Rinoa beamed at the compliment. “Want another?”

Quistis had never been much of a drinker. A glass of wine here or there. And even a standard eight ounce glass of wine would make her tipsy, especially if she had not had anything to eat recently. The strict schedule she adhered to while employed, which included her eating regimen, had been abandoned. It was well after nine in the evening and she hadn’t eaten since her late breakfast. Which meant she should decline. 

Except it was strangely difficult to say no to this charming young woman, who operated on general kindness and had an addicting air about her. Quistis had met countless people during her tenure in academia. And none of them were as interesting as this young bartender. 

“Sure,” she found herself agreeing to another drink. 

Rinoa turned around to grab a clean glass from the shelf behind her. Glasses ranging from single shots to steins lined the shelf in an organized row. After placing the glass down on the counter she began making another Jolt. Dark eyes stared Quistis down, barely looking at what she was doing while expertly mixing the double shot. 

"I need to see your ID, Doctor Trepe.” 

Her tone was playful, but Quistis obeyed the illogical demand as she searched her purse. “I’ve been coming here and ordering drinks for three nights. You’re mixing my second drink tonight. And now you want to see my ID?”

“Well now I’m curious.” She spoke as if that explained everything. Quistis unfolded her wallet and flashed her identification without removing it. 

Instead of appearing satisfied, she scowled suspiciously. “You’re twenty five years old?”

“That’s right,” Quistis grumbled while returning her wallet to her purse. Now it was time for the unwarranted line of questioning she had heard time and again from older colleagues and academics who refused to take her seriously. Even a seemingly benign topic such as her age, exchanged with another young woman, had her on edge. Quistis almost left for the second time that evening, but something in the young woman’s eyes kept her seated.

“How many PhDs did you say you have?” Rinoa put the drink on a coaster and slid it across the counter to her.

“I didn’t.”

“And a college professor at your age? Pretty impressive.” Her tone was not dismissive or doubtful. “Wanna guess my age?”

“No.”

“Oh come on! One guess.”

Quistis pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and began studying Rinoa with more scrutiny than before. Rinoa’s skin gave the illusion of porcelain. There were no freckles, wrinkles, pock marks, or blemishes. She had long, natural lashes. Little to no makeup. There was an attractive glow about her. Almost electric. Her smile was persistent. Stubbornly so. Quistis would have thought it forced, but everything about her felt genuine.

Speculating every minute detail of her face did little to help Quistis determine her age. Rinoa could have easily blended in among the students in one of her lecture halls. It was best to take a stab in the dark to get this over with. “Twenty.”

“Close! Twenty one. My birthday was last week.” 

“Happy belated birthday,” Quistis lifted her drink in a mock toast before sampling it. The taste was identical to the last Jolt.

Quistis finished her drink, and carefully placed the empty glass in the center of the wooden coaster.

“Thanks.” Rinoa took the glass, making it disappear. 

Quistis hated small talk, but Rinoa’s silence promoted her to speak. “Twenty-first birthdays are a significant milestone. Did you go out with friends?”

Before Rinoa could answer, a verbal fight broke out by the pool machine. “Hey guys! Quiet down! Don’t you remember what happened the last time I had to break up a fight?”

The vague threat immediately shut them up. Rinoa returned to her whimsical smile, though Quistis detected a hint of sadness behind it. “No, I didn’t do much. Just worked. My boyfriend’s out of state on a mission.” 

"A Balamb military academy graduate?" Quistis voiced her assumption as a question. 

Nostalgia clouded Rinoa’s features. One of her hands flung to the heavy ring dangling from a silver chain around her neck. She nodded while twirling the ring, a few sizes too large for her dainty hands. 

The intricate markings on the ring were spectacularly detailed. It was not much of a stretch to guess what mythological creature it bore. "Is that a Phoenix?"

Impressed and seemingly surprised that Quistis recognized the design on the ring, Rinoa smiled with pride in her eyes. "Yeah. If you knew that, I guess you already know what it represents."

Rinoa began to sway as if she wanted to stand closer and confide something personal to her. Quistis hated it when people confided in her. Secrets or personal embarrassments were things better left to one’s self. 

Her lips spoke silent words, testing their feel on her lips before revealing her thoughts to the universe. Heat rose in Quistis’ cheeks, which she immediately blamed on the alcohol.

Finally, Rinoa spoke loudly enough for Quistis to hear. "I was thinking… I'd like to go to school. Maybe take some classes, I…"

"Why don’t you?" 

Rinoa gave her a queer look. Quistis acknowledged it was a blunt question, but didn’t think it was as strange as she was making it out to be. 

"Oh, you know… Time, money…” Rinoa returned to wiping down the counter which she already cleaned. The protective layer of glass was scuffed from years of use, but spotless otherwise. “Plus I’m not exactly the booksmart type.” 

“You should give it a try. University is a much different experience than high school.” Quistis fell back to the same motivational lines she used hundreds of times on new students who were struggling or otherwise doubting themselves. The words sounded generic, but she did believe them. 

Quistis pushed her stool back from the counter and stood up. She slid both of her slender arms into their respective sleeves. Rinoa tilted her head as if noticing the height difference for the first time. Quistis felt those ebony eyes on her as she pressed the folds of her collar, smoothed down wrinkles in her skirt, and reached into her purse. 

Rinoa blinked when Quistis presented her with a business card. “What’s this?”

"If you decide to enroll, give me a call," Quistis said as Rinoa took her card and glanced at it. "On my cell phone, that is, since my office phone has been… terminated."

Admitting that out loud was unexpectedly cathartic. 

The young girl wiped underneath her eyes with the back of her hand and nodded. "I will, thank you."

"I still have some connections in the admissions office." 

Rinoa reached out to accept the card. Her fingertips brushed against Quistis’ hand. Her touch was feather-light, yet Quistis felt like she was hit by a truck. 

No, not a truck. Some supernatural force that made her skin flush and hair stand on end. Quistis froze as Rinoa plucked the card from her hands and studied it. 

“I will… _Doctor_ Trepe,” she quipped, unfazed by the otherworldly sensation that passed between them. 

She hadn’t felt it. Or, more likely, Quistis had completely imagined it. Two drinks were definitely her limit.

Quistis reached into her wallet and dropped a few bills onto the counter. Rinoa bit her bottom lip and slipped the card into one of her boots.

Quistis watched her tuck the card away. She knew she should begin walking back to her crushing apartment that was beginning to feel more and more like prison isolation. This had been the first time she had an actual conversation with someone who wasn’t a student or work colleague. 

And she found she rather liked it.

Still, it would be uncouth for her to continue showing up to converse with a younger woman she had nothing in common with. Rinoa probably thought she was desperate for company. Or a creeper. A desperate creeper. 

Steeling herself, Quistis zipped her jacket and left, convincing herself she wouldn’t return.


	2. The Taste of Lemons

The countertop was spotless, but it did not stop her from mindlessly scrubbing it. She always had a wandering mind; prone to daydreaming about any random topic at any given moment. 

Except there was nothing random about her mind’s meanderings the last couple of weeks. 

A vision of Quistis adjusting the glasses on her face flashed across her vision. Rinoa shook her head, more than slightly annoyed with herself. Quistis fit the profile of the type who didn’t occupy Angelo’s Tavern often: scholarly, socially awkward, and introverted. In truth, she reminded Rinoa of Squall in a lot of ways. That must be why she felt so drawn to Quistis, she reasoned.

Rinoa closed her eyes, envisioning a pair of striking, wary blue eyes. Whether they belonged to Squall or Quistis, she couldn’t say. 

Rinoa had half a mind to call her, but she hadn’t made up her mind about enrolling in Balamb University yet and that was clearly the reason Quistis gave her her card. Going back to school, even part time, would be a healthy distraction. Spending all of her time worrying about Squall was not healthy or productive. 

The more frustrated she became with herself, the more difficult it became to calm the erratic energy flowing through her. It buzzed in her skull, forming strange words she didn’t understand.

“Hello! Earth to Heartilly!”

Rinoa snapped from her reveries and returned to the present. A gloved hand was in her face, waving her back to reality. 

“Hey Irvine. Sorry.” Rinoa unclenched her jaw. She grabbed his empty mug and dropped it in the sink as fast as she could, hoping he didn’t detect the electric friction in her fingertips. “Want another?”

“Yeah, please.” His lanky form bent over as he rested an elbow on the counter. “You okay, darlin’? Ya spaced out for a second there.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired,” Rinoa lied while cracking open a fresh beer and pouring it into a frozen mug. She liked Irvine enough, but had never uttered a word about her deployed boyfriend. Rinoa didn’t speak of her personal life often, and no one ever asked. 

“Thanks babe,” he dipped the rim of his cowboy hat, slapped a bill on the counter, and sauntered back to the pool table. His spurs clanked and his long, light brown jacket swayed with his hips. 

Rinoa gave an exasperated shake of her head and laughed. Irvine was the most flamboyant cowboy she had ever met. Granted, she didn’t think she had ever met any real cowboys. Nor was she convinced he was genuine; he never came in smelling like a farm, or spoke of wrangling cattle or riding horses. 

Irvine’s game of pool against his friend resumed. Rinoa stared through them as they played. She was oblivious to the men and their game, seeing instead a woman very much resembling her, wearing a scarlet dress and playing a lilting melody on a grand piano.

The bells above the door jingled. The jarring disruption from the song in her head turned her attention to the door. 

Rinoa knew her eyes were wide and she was slack-jawed, but she couldn’t stop herself from staring. She almost didn’t recognize Quistis at first, which felt rather silly, considering her hair and clothing were very much the same. It was not so much her appearance that startled Rinoa, but the more subtle aspects of Quistis’ character that changed. 

The professor’s shoulders were no longer slumped. Quistis had a height advantage before, but now she looked even taller. The ponytail she wore was replaced with a black hair clip which allowed thick strips of golden hair to frame both sides of her face; thin and straight like rulers. Rinoa giggled at her succinct analogy.

Rinoa watched as she removed the same black leather jacket she wore when she last visited weeks ago, revealing a soft pink dress shirt that had a golden zipper where she expected a row of buttons. Rinoa felt her cheeks matching Quistis’ shirt as she took stock of her curves.

"Hello, Rinoa." Quistis laid her jacket across her lap as always. “How are you?”

Rinoa scratched the back of her head and gave an embarrassed laugh. "Wow, Quistis, you look, umm… different. Like, less ‘I hate my life and need to drink my sorrows away’ and more ‘That’s Doctor Trepe to you."

Quistis chuckled. The sound was composed. Deeper than Rinoa thought it would be. "In that case, I'll get a Coke with a slice of lemon."

The bartender went to work, filling a glass with fountain soda and lodging a lemon slice on its rim. She slid the drink, atop a wooden coaster, to her customer. 

"So… How’ve you been?" Rinoa leaned against the counter and made herself comfortable. The only other customers in the bar were Irvine and his friend, which gave her the perfect opportunity to have a more intimate conversation with Quistis. 

The change in Quistis’ presentation and mood made it quite obvious something good happened in her life since they last spoke. Maybe it was a new job or a new boyfriend. No, couldn’t be a boyfriend. If she was in a new relationship she’d have brought him along. And Quistis didn’t seem like the relationship type. No, she was the married-to-her-job type. 

This was a sort of game the bartender liked to play with her regulars. She made assumptions about them based on their appearance and demeanor, then waited to see how many she got right. While it was an automatic habit of hers, it was different this time. With Quistis, she wanted to know. _Needed_ to know. She spent the last two weeks wondering what became of the beautiful, but mournful, blonde.

Quistis pulled the lemon slice free and squeezed some juice into her soda. Then she brought what was left of the fruit's flesh to her lips. As she sucked the lemon dry Rinoa squinted; she never understood how people could actually like the taste of lemons. 

"I’ve been working," Quistis said. Rinoa couldn’t tell if she was being purposefully vague or not.

Rinoa beamed. She was right! And, most importantly, Quistis was happy. Smiling, even! Rinoa rather liked her smile… It was somewhat shy and awkward, but so sweet and easy to get lost in. A lot like Squall’s. “You got a new job already? Where?"

Quistis shook her head as she laid the bare rind on a napkin. Rinoa patiently watched as her customer took a sip of her drink. Condensation dripped and spread along the crevices in the coaster. Quistis didn’t lick her lips. The coloring on her thin lips was smudged. Rinoa watched the glass as it returned to the counter, noticing a rosy lipstick smudge along the rim of the glass. Rinoa had been staring at her smile since she walked into the bar, and somehow failed to notice she was wearing lipstick today.

"I was reinstated.”

“So you’re back at Balamb University?” Rinoa would not have guessed that, but she decided that it still counted. “How?” 

Quistis stared at her drink, watching the ice cubes melt away. Her sigh was heavy. The words weighed heavily on her mind, exhausting her before she could speak them. A shadow hovered, dulling her bright disposition from earlier. This was supposed to be a joyful topic. Why was Quistis acting so somber all of a sudden?

‘“The Dean who fired me was let go.”

Rinoa knit her brow in confusion. "So the new Dean gave you your position back?" Quistis simply nodded a reply. Something wasn’t adding up. Rinoa asked the next logical question. "Well, what did he get fired for?"

"Sexual harassment."

Realization turned Rinoa’s narrow eyes wide. "Quistis, did he…? I thought you told me you pissed him off."

"Yes. That is the truth."

A very small fraction of the truth. The more Rinoa stewed over the imaginary scenarios of what the harrasser said or did to Quistis, the more livid she became. Static flowed through her fingertips. Red flooded her vision. The victim sat before her, demure and externally calm. Uninterested in the revenge Rinoa desperately craved. She wished she could control these erratic powers of hers, and use them to destroy dangerous assholes that preyed on women.

“Rinoa. Your hair.”

Her hands flung to her hair. It was static-charged. Strands floated, seemingly of their own accord. The distraction calmed her mind and put a sudden end to her mysterious fit. 

It would be back. It always came back. Usually when she was angry or upset, her body came alive with electricity and she didn’t know what to do with it or how to control it. Being close to people was nearly impossible because of this phenomenon she couldn’t explain. Squall was the only person she met who accepted it as part of who she was. He didn’t press her for answers, or call her a freak, or show any fear.

Rinoa sighed. They needed to change the subject before her body did something even more bizarre or unexplainable. Quistis’ head was tilted, leveling Rinoa with a curious stare and a furrowed brow. Her analytical mind was probably running a thousand miles a minute trying to explain what just occurred. Her deep thought stare was… cute.

Unfortunately there were no tangible answers someone like Quistis would accept as truth.

“May I?” Quistis extended an arm toward her. Without understanding the question, Rinoa found herself nodding, desperate for anything that might turn her brain off. 

Quistis stood, drawing uncomfortably close. Rinoa held her breath as the professor leaned in. Those baby blue eyes were somehow more striking while invading her personal space. They were directed downward, toward her chest. She flushed at the ridiculous thought before realizing Quistis was interested in her necklace. 

Fingers cold and wet from holding a glass wrapped around Squall’s ring. Quistis turned it over multiple times, scrutinizing it. Rinoa had half a thought to take her necklace off, but felt addled and helpless with Quistis in her face, staring down towards her chest. 

And she smelled so good. Some sort of feminine musk… Rinoa would have to ask what perfume she used later.

“Strange.” Quistis abruptly released the ring and sat back down. 

Rinoa blinked. She was relieved to find she had not forgotten how to breathe, despite yearning for Quistis’ smothering presence once more.

“What’s strange?” Rinoa squeaked. 

The wrinkles in her brow persisted, but otherwise Quistis acted casual. “It’s nothing.”

Nothing? Either she was hiding something, or inspecting the ring was a poorly-veiled attempt to get in Rinoa’s face. 

Irvine cheered in the background. Rinoa caught a glimpse of him throwing his fist in the air, celebrating his victory. The raised stage returned her to earlier thoughts. 

"Hey, you know what?" Rinoa asked quietly. When she saw that she had Quistis' attention, she nodded toward the pool table. "My mother performed here. A long time ago. There used to be a piano over there. She was a traveling pianist."

Quistis turned in her seat, putting her back to Rinoa. "Oh? What does she do now?"

"She died. I was really young at the time." Rinoa pined for her mother’s affections. She never got along with her father. Their personalities and values couldn’t be any further apart on the spectrum. They were night and day. Rinoa often wondered what the hell her mother ever saw in such a cold, ruthless man. 

“What was her name?”

"Julia."

"Julia…Did she sing?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No. Well, she did sing one song. I have an old record of it somewhere… It's really pretty. A love ballad. Funny thing, is she didn't write it for my father."

Quistis turned back towards her and arched an eyebrow. Rinoa figured she deserved that. A statement like the one she just made deserved more clarification. "She met and fell in love with an Esthar soldier before meeting my dad. But I guess they lost touch."

Would that be her fate? Sure, there was no active war, and communication technology had advanced significantly since those times, but soldiers like Squall were still stationed all around the world, often on confidential and dangerous missions. Squall rarely spoke of his training or duties. As a matter of fact, Rinoa knew next to nothing about what he actually did. She knew he achieved the rank of Commander in Special Ops at Balamb Military Academy. But that was about it. 

Rinoa clutched his ring, lost in thought yet again. The strange energy inside of her didn’t resurface, but she felt it boiling just beneath. 

"Hey Heartilly. Thanks for the good service, beautiful."

Rinoa and Quistis turned to look at Irvine, who was dipping his hat in her direction. 

Smiling was the last thing she felt like doing, but when Irvine was around she couldn’t help herself. He was boyish and charming. A flirt, to be sure, but he was always respectful and never made any inappropriate gestures. "You're welcome, Irvy. Have a good night."

He dropped a few bills on the counter. Irvine was always a good tipper. He cast a predictable glance at Quistis before returning his attention to her. "My offer still stands, ya know."

Rinoa gave a polite laugh while shaking her head. "You know I'm gonna have to pass on that."

Irvine winked with a grin and swaggered off with his drinking buddy in tow behind him. Rinoa had been in such a funk when they first arrived, she didn't remember if they did introductions or not. He was very chatty and energetic, talking up a storm while hopping back and forth. What stood out the most about him, aside from his spiked blonde hair, was a unique tribal tattoo on the side of his face. Under normal circumstances, Rinoa would have imagined up an entire life for him as she idly cleaned and organized the bar. But she was all out of sorts the last couple of weeks, and refused to admit the true reason why.

"A regular customer?" Quistis asked as the door closed behind them.

Rinoa nodded. "The cowboy, yeah. He’s flirty, but harmless. Don’t know his friend.”

“Have you given any more thought to enrolling in Balamb University?”

“Yeah. But… I don’t know yet. I don’t even know what I’d study.” 

“You don’t have to declare a major right away. Look up the course catalog on our website.” Quistis paused. “Did you need me to bring you one?”

Did Quistis think she was so poor she didn’t have internet access? Rinoa had a smartphone like everyone else her age. She kept it in her pocket while working and didn’t look at it when there were customers in the tavern. 

But if Quistis thought she needed to bring her a catalog… 

“Would you bring me one sometime? If it isn’t too much trouble?”

“Of course. Enrollment for next semester ends in two weeks. You don’t have long to make a decision.” If Quistis saw through her little white lie she gave no indication. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Quistis looked happy to have an excuse to come see her again. 

Rinoa took Quistis' glass, empty except for half-melted ice cubes, and dropped it into the sink. Quistis stood and began putting her jacket on.

"Leaving so soon?" Rinoa’s heart sank.

Quistis nodded. "Yes. I have quite a bit of work to do."

Something she hadn’t felt since Squall’s deployment stung at her heart. Desperation. She didn’t beg Squall not to leave her. He had a sworn duty he was committed to before they even met. 

But this time, Rinoa was already stripped of her pride and found no reason not to beg. She reached across the bar and cuffed Quistis’ wrist with her fingers. "Will you be back soon?"

Quistis' expression was unreadable. Neither of them moved for agonizingly long, slow seconds. Behind her blue eyes Rinoa could see how busy her mind was. She doubted the older woman ever found a moment’s peace. 

Rinoa cleared her throat. “With the catalog, I mean.”

Quistis cupped Rinoa’s hand, still desperately clinging, with her own. "I'll be back. Very soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: smartphones were not a thing back when I originally wrote this fic lol


	3. The Comfort She Craved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery surrounding Rinoa grows.

Quistis' eyes narrowed as she scanned the tavern. Rinoa was nowhere to be found. In fact, the building appeared vacant. No customers or employees lingered about. The jukebox droned on with no audience besides the disarrayed furniture. She stood in the doorway, hesitant to enter the unpredictable destruction before her. 

Angelo’s Tavern was in complete shambles. It looked as though a tornado had torn through the quaint establishment. The stool Quistis usually occupied was in pieces on the floor, strewn about with the rest of the chairs and overturned tables. Pool balls littered the floor. The glasses and liquor bottles that had lined the shelves behind the bar were shattered everywhere, creating a wet glass mosaic across the floor. 

She nearly gagged at the overwhelming stench permeating the air. 

Something was horribly wrong. It charged the stagnant air, spiking her adrenaline and pulse. 

Before Quistis could decide what she should do, the door behind the bar swung open and a young woman she had never seen before rushed out. The brunette’s hair bobbed at her shoulders.

"You’re not Irvine.” She visibly deflated. 

Quistis did not care about Irvine or whoever this person was. The longer she went without visible confirmation of Rinoa’s safety, the more anxious she became. "Is Rinoa here? Is she safe?"

The girl behind the counter blinked in surprise. She hesitated. “Yeah… She’s in the back."

Something about her tone was wrong. Quistis knew better than to judge a stranger, but there was something about the way this petite woman wearing bright, canary yellow clothing carried herself. She was hiding something. 

"What happened? Can I see her? I brought something for her." It seemed inconsequential now, but Quistis had to point out she was here for a reason. She waved the folded course catalog like a ticket, hoping it would allow her passage.

The girl seemed reluctant. "I don't know… she's really upset. I can’t get near her." 

Can’t? What did that mean? As her trepidation grew, Quistis became more frustrated and agitated. She had enough of this feeling back when it made her sick all day every day. Never knowing if he would approach her. Talk to her. Touch her.

While Rinoa never made her feel any of those things, the general anxiety turning her stomach was similar… Except now it was laced with fearful concern. 

“Let me see her,” Quistis pressed.

The woman came around from the bar. Glass crunched beneath her brown boots. She was even smaller than Rinoa, Quistis realized as she approached. Though clearly frazzled, she seemed friendly. 

"You're Quistis… aren't you? Name’s Selphie! I’m Rinoa’s friend and co-worker." She extended a hand. 

Quistis ignored the meaningless gesture that served only to waste time. “Yes, my name is Quistis. Take me to Rinoa. Please.” 

Her tone made it clear she was not taking no for an answer. Selphie chewed on her bottom lip while pondering her response.

“Okay… But don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” Selphie chided in a singsong voice before leading Quistis back to where she had come from.

Quistis nodded her thanks and followed. The closer they drew to the closed door, the stronger the electric charge permeating the air became. As much as she tried blocking out the memory, it came of its own volition; raven hair floating about a pale, vacant face. While it was not her area of expertise, the mathematics professor knew the basics of static electricity. If her theory was correct, Rinoa’s body was experiencing a tremendous amount of friction due to an imbalance of positive and negative charges, emitting electrons like a sort of conduit. She had considered discussing the matter with experts in the science department, but it would have been inappropriate without discussing it with Rinoa first. 

Whatever this scientific phenomenon was, it exponentially increased in potency once Selphie opened the door. Her guide crept just inside the doorway and beckoned her to follow. Selphie was tiptoeing and pressing her fingers to her lips in a gesture to stay silent as if they were approaching a hibernating bear. 

Quistis stepped into the back room, its state much like the bar she already witnessed. Instead of liquor fumes burning her nostrils, it was a blend of perfumes and bleach. Cleaning products were strewn about, toppled to the floor from the collapsed shelves to their left. 

Amidst a sea of empty boxes and beer bottles sat Rinoa, bent over with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her bent head was squeezed between her knees, shielded by her ebony hair. She was still. Unmoving, basking in the atmosphere she somehow created.

The silence was shattered by deep, heart wrenching sobs. They touched Quistis like nothing else she had ever heard. It was a sound she avoided at all costs. But with Rinoa she felt the urge to draw closer. Comfort her; though she had no idea how to do such a thing. 

Quistis took one step forward. A hand clutched her arm, holding her back. She looked back at Selphie. Rinoa’s friend released her grip, solemnly shaking her head. Dim lighting shrouded something etched in her face. Selphie cast shifty glances at Rinoa, back to Quistis. 

“Don’t.” 

It was fear. Fear transformed Selphie’s visage in the dim room. She was afraid of Rinoa. Afraid of kind, captivating Rinoa? That was absurd. 

Unless…

Quistis couldn’t believe it. She refused to believe it. There was no way Rinoa could have caused all of this destruction. Evidence surrounding her be damned, Quistis was blind to a reality where Rinoa was a threat.

Ignoring Selphie’s warning, Quistis took a step forward. Then another. Every strand of hair on her body stood on end. Every cell became charged. She paused. The electric power radiating from Rinoa became stronger as she closed the distance between them. 

“Rinoa. It’s Quistis.” She advanced another step. She knew she should say something else. But what? She had no idea what was upsetting her. Or why she was crying. Or what would cheer her up.

Quistis realized she knew nearly nothing about this young woman that she couldn’t get out of her head.

Her only answer was a sob. Then another. Followed by a wailing shriek that reverberated through the air. The sound wave took form like a powerful gale. Beer cans flew across the empty space before flattening against the wall. Selphie cried out behind her as something collided with her. Quistis heard a thump.

“Ow!” Selphie whined. 

Quistis turned to check on her. Selphie had fallen on her bottom and was rubbing her head. There was no blood, so Quistis left her to handle Rinoa. The sudden burst of wind ended as soon as it happened. With it went the static charging the atmosphere. Quistis reached up to feel her hair, which had returned to its previous state. Aside from the anxiety and worry, her body felt normal again. 

Dropping her guard must have been her surrendering. The professor took it as permission to advance. Quistis inched toward her, carefully dropping to her knees when within touching distance. She noticed for the first time that Rinoa was wearing pajamas, with no shoes or socks. Her bare toes were pruney and pale. If she wanted to, she could have reached out and touched Rinoa’s hands wrapped around her knees. 

Rinoa’s chest rose and fell. Her face was still hidden. Periodic sniffles filled the unsettling silence. While Quistis was grateful the grating buzzing was gone, she would rather the silence be filled with Rinoa’s gentle laughter. 

As softly as she felt she could manage, Quistis placed her hand on Rinoa's shoulder. "Rinoa?"

A long time passed before there was any change, and Quistis began to question whether Rinoa heard her or not. The young girl lost the strength to hold her knees up. Legs hit the floor, trapping Quistis between them. 

“Rinoa. What’s wrong?” 

Glazed eyes, bloodshot from crying, finally looked back at her. Tears poured down her cheeks. Crimson light flooded her features. Quistis knew its origins without looking away from Rinoa’s face. The same phenomenon occurred the last time she visited Rinoa. The phoenix on her ring activated, like it had a built in light source. 

In any case, she couldn’t think about that now. She had to focus on Rinoa. But Quistis didn’t know the first thing about cheering others up. She couldn’t even cheer herself up. The more she stressed over what she should say or do, the more helpless she felt. 

She should just leave. Selphie was Rinoa’s friend; she would know best. Quistis was probably making matters worse. Before she could work herself up to an anxiety attack, she began counting to calm herself. 

One… Two… Three…

Eyelashes were the first thing she thought to count without looking away. Rinoa looked through her without blinking.

Twenty… Twenty-five…

She felt more at ease, yet received no enlightening ideas about what she should do.

Or why she thought this was her problem to begin with.

One of her hands found the top of Rinoa's head. Trying to ignore its softness, she began finger-combing the locks. The gesture seemed to soothe her. Rinoa’s head bowed again.

“Why did you leave me?” 

Quistis barely heard the question. When she did eventually make sense of the words, she had no answer. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” 

Rinoa's cries got loud again. Quistis returned to petting her hair, but her attempts to soothe Rinoa again were in vain. The exhausted young woman slumped forward without warning. Quistis caught her upper body with her own. She sighed in relief and bewilderment. 

Sensing the danger was over, Selphie crept forward. “Rinny? You awake?”

Quistis shook her head. “She fell asleep without warning. Has she done that before?”

“Nope. Not that I’ve seen anyway.”

Rinoa’s weight leaned into hers with no sign of moving. Her breath turned slow and heavy, telling Quistis she was fast asleep. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Selphie shifted from one foot to the other before deciding to trust her. “I didn’t get the whole story… but…” 

Now she was crying too. Quistis sighed again. She knew she should be understanding and patient, but she was mostly annoyed. If she didn’t know what was wrong she couldn’t help. 

Selphie sniffed and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she blurted before hiding her face behind her hands. 

She had no desire to continue sitting on a filthy floor with Rinoa sleeping against her in the most uncomfortable spot imaginable. Quistis doubted she could lift Rinoa up without assistance. “Come over here and help me then.”

Selphie wiped her eyes and collected herself. After sniffling and wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve, Selphie made her way over and helped them off the floor. Between the two of them, getting Rinoa’s dead weight up was a clumsy chore. No matter how much they bumbled around and cursed, Rinoa did not stir.

After a lot of grunting, Quistis was on her feet with Rinoa’s limp body hanging over her shoulder. Rinoa was not heavy, but Quistis was no weightlifter by any stretch of the word. It did not take long for her shoulders to begin aching. 

They needed a plan. 

“I drove my car here. I can take her home,” Quistis offered. “If you will give me the address, that is.”

“I don’t think she should be alone right now. I’d take her to my place, but—“

The bells above the entrance jingled, signaling they had company. “That must be Irvine!” Selphie exclaimed while sprinting back to the main bar. “He’s going to help me clean up this mess!”

“Hey!” Quistis called after Selphie who bolted out of the backroom. Resigning herself to carrying the unconscious woman alone, she slowly made her way back to the bar. 

“Hey! That’s no way to carry a lady!” Irvine scolded her as she slowly made her way around the counter. 

Quistis remembered him. The tall, flirty man who dressed like a cowboy. His presence made Rinoa smile, but all she could do was scowl. “Then come over here and help!”

“Yes ma’am!” Irvine practically skipped across the debris to her. He was far too eager to scoop Rinoa into his arms. Quistis glared as he relieved her of Rinoa’s weight. Under her scrutinizing eyes his hands did not wander to any inappropriate places.

“But?” Quistis pressed Selphie, who had apparently forgotten about their abandoned conversation.

“What? Oh! I was gonna say, normally she could stay with me, but it’s probably gonna take all night for us to clean this up.” 

Before Irvine could offer to let Rinoa crash at his place, Quistis intervened. “She can stay with me.”

“That would be great!” Selphie barely gave her any time to realize what she had volunteered herself for. “Where do you live?”

“In the downtown Balamb condominiums. Just around the block.”

Selphie whistled. “Oh yeah, I’m familiar with that part of town. Pretty ritzy.”

Quistis could not decipher whether that was a jab or a compliment, so she ignored it. She dug into her purse for a card. “Here is my cell phone and work phone numbers.”

“Thanks Doctor Trepe.” Selphie giggled and buried the card in her pocket. “I’ll call in the morning. Can I come see her?”

“Of course.” Just what she needed. Another stranger in her home. 

“Let’s get this sleeping beauty in your car.” Irvine made way for the main entrance. Rinoa looked so small in his arms. Raven hair veiled her face in partitioned strands. What could be seen of her face was contorted with misery. 

Whatever plagued Rinoa, it persisted in her dreams as well. 

As Quistis begrudgingly led Irvine to her car, disparaging thoughts cycled through her mind.

Why was she doing this? Why did she care? Why couldn’t she get the bartender out of her mind, even after returning to work and intentionally filling her brain with thousands of other things? 

Why. Why. Why.

Time and again she told herself she was done. People, relationships, all of it. Unless she was discussing academia or assisting her students, she shut herself off to others. Becoming entangled with humans and their complicated, unpredictable emotions only ever hurt her in the end.

And yet, as she helped Irvine lay Rinoa onto the backseat of her car, she realized she was involving herself with a very complicated young woman… And she was incapable of stopping herself.  
—

Red faded to white. 

The nightmares slipped through her grasp, leaving behind the lingering feelings of despair and dread. The images were fleeting, waiting for the next time she lost control.

No. There would be no next time. She could not allow it. No matter what happened, she could not succumb.

Rinoa had no idea where she was. All she knew for certain was that everything was stark, blinding white. Like angel feathers. Or heaven. Or even a hospital. 

As her other senses awakened, she recognized a scent. It was not the sterilized aroma she came to expect from hospitals. It was comforting. Musky and citrusy, like shampoo or perfume. She knew this smell.

It smelled like… Quistis?

Rinoa sat up too fast, making her head spin. She was in an unfamiliar bed. The sheets were white and silky smooth against her bare arms. The room was barely furnished; it had a nightstand, a dresser, a closed closet, and an occupied rocking chair. The blonde slumped over in said chair confirmed her suspicions. 

This was professor Quistis Trepe’s home. 

How the hell did she get here?

As Rinoa stared at the sleeping woman with an open book across her lap, she tried piecing together what she remembered. She went to their apartment after work, like always. It was a Friday night, and busy, so she didn’t get home until later than usual. She called him. He didn’t answer. She ate and watched some television. Or did she browse the news on her phone? All she knew for certain was that she eventually fell asleep in his chair. 

Then they came.

Rinoa shook her head. She stared down at the flawless white sheets bunched up on her lap.

They wore white. Two strangers who knocked down her door in the middle of the day. White helmets. No faces. Muffled voices that said something.

They said…

They said…

Rinoa squeezed her eyes shut. Vermillion splotches filled the darkness behind her eyelids. It darkened, spreading like a stain…

That’s right. She turned their white suits red because of their filthy lies.

“No. No.” Rinoa buried her face in her hands. She would never do something like that. Ever. No matter how hurt or upset she was. That must have been a nightmare. None of it could be real.

But if those memories were figments of her imagination, how did she wind up here?

"Rinoa?"

Rinoa glanced at Quistis. Her bright eyes were sunken. Tired, she assumed. Rinoa swallowed. She had to lock it all away. “How long have I been here?”

"You've been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours. It’s Sunday evening."

The bartender almost didn't believe Quistis at first. How had she lost an entire weekend? Rinoa looked out the bedroom’s only window. The rosy pink and violet swirls of dusk peeked through the blinds. 

Without waiting for a response, Quistis collected her book and set it on the nightstand. She stretched and stood. Rinoa noticed she was dressed like she was going to work, with her hair pinned back and makeup on, not like she stayed at home babysitting her all weekend. "I'm sure you're hungry. Let’s get you something to eat."

Quistis left the room. Rinoa found herself grateful for her aversion to small talk, though she knew she couldn’t avoid the topic for long. Quistis would push her for answers sooner or later. 

Rinoa threw the sheets back. She looked down at her clothes. Navy blue sleepwear. Yes, this was what she changed into after work Friday night. Great. How many people had seen her in pajamas? 

As she stood, she felt something weighing down her pocket. She pulled her phone out, feeling elated for a brief second before remembering what happened to all of her phones. She tried powering it on. 

Nothing.

“Fried,” Rinoa muttered and tossed the broken electronic on the nightstand. Something on the nightstand caught her eye. She scooped up the colorful catalog, instantly recognizing the black and white Balamb University logo. 

Talking to Quistis about attending University felt like a lifetime ago. The conversation was foggy in her mind, but the excitement in Quistis’ face was still vivid. After returning the catalog where she found it, Rinoa emerged from the bedroom. 

The apartment had an open concept; the living room, kitchen, and dining room had no walls or partitions separating them. The walls and nearly all of the furniture were white with hints of maroon and violet strewn into the upholstery and painting trim. Rinoa was no stranger to expensive, upper class living arrangements. Her father was General Caraway of Dollet city, after all. Though she abandoned that lifestyle many years ago, she would always recognize the atmosphere of wealth.

These furnishings were not nearly as gaudy as Rinoa was accustomed to. No rare, expensive art decorated the walls. Nor were there any statues filling empty corners. A flat screen television hung on the white wall, opposite a white leather couch. There were no shelves or cabinets showcasing any valuables or collectibles. Only a bookcase, which did not hold her interest. 

Rinoa made her way into the kitchen, which had an island with a glass top and two stools. Between the island and the stovetop Quistis stood, with her back to her, stirring something. A basket of fruit occupied the island. Rinoa sat and plucked a granny smith apple. 

“Selphie came by to see you a couple of times. You were sleeping and we didn’t want to wake you.”

Rinoa studied the apple’s surface. There were no nicks or bruises. It was flawless. She broke the skin, tasting its sweet and slightly sour flesh. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation before the first bite reached it. Eating felt wrong, but she needed to keep her mouth busy. She had no recollection of seeing or speaking to Selphie. But she wasn’t ready to admit it.

"Thank you. For letting me stay here."

“Selphie and I didn’t think you should go home alone.” 

That statement begged at least a dozen follow up questions, but Rinoa didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know. She was much happier sitting in blissful ignorance, watching Quistis move about her kitchen like a fish out of water. By the way she double checked every dial and searched her own cupboards for eatery, Rinoa got the impression she didn’t cook much. 

That was one sentiment Rinoa could relate to. Once Squall went overseas, she found little desire to go to the trouble of cooking for herself. From what Rinoa could tell, Quistis was a single woman with no children. Then again, she had no basis for her assumption besides her own observations. 

Rinoa clutched her necklace. Memories of the countless meals they shared together came to her. Normally their times together filled her with warmth. Now all she felt was dread. 

She had been out for an entire day. He must be worried sick. She always answered when he called, which was practically every day. Squall was not much of a conversationalist, nor was he at liberty to discuss most of what he did at work, so their conversations were rather one-sided. Despite not speaking all that much, Squall always reassured her that hearing her voice was the highlight of his day.

“Hey, umm… Can I borrow your phone before we eat?”

“Sure.” Quistis nodded and dug a cell phone out of her pocket. After unlocking it with her thumbprint she handed it over. Rinoa stared at the home screen while swallowing the bile rising in her throat. Default app icons, with only a couple of unique downloads; one of which appeared to be a Balamb University app. Even the wallpaper was a stock photo of a cloudy sky. No family, friends, or even a celebrity crush photograph. 

With a hard swallow, she dialed Squall’s number. 

No answer. She tried pushing her concern away, but something kept stabbing at the inside of her forehead. 

_You know why he isn’t answering…_

“Hi. I broke another phone… Call me at this number when you get this message please. Miss you.” 

Rinoa ended the call and laid the phone on the island counter. Half-digested fruit rolled in her otherwise empty belly, threatening to come back up. She averted Quistis’ curious stare. Glass bowls clanked beside her. 

“Sorry you got stuck babysitting me all weekend. I didn’t…” Her head throbbed. Crimson whorls filled her vision.

"All I do on the weekends is grade assignments, so don't worry about it." 

Her hands were clenched into fists. Rinoa hurriedly hid them in her lap. She watched as Quistis poured tomato soup into two bowls without spilling a drop. For her part, Quistis did not seem too put out by her presence. Awkward and hesitant, but not annoyed. 

"I trust you'll be all right here tomorrow while I go to the University,” Quistis continued. “That is… unless you'd like to come along."

Rinoa paused while chewing her apple. Go hang out at Balamb University while Quistis taught and did whatever professors do all day? 

She couldn’t be out in public. She was barely keeping it together. Everything hurt. Everything was on edge and burned and the voices were threatening to return.

But Quistis. 

It would be poor form to continue taking advantage of her hospitality. Quistis offered to leave her alone all day, a stranger, in her beautiful condo, without batting an eyelash. Well, figuratively. She was sort of batting her long lashes while staring down at the counter. 

For such a prolific, accomplished woman, Dr. Trepe really was hopeless when it came to casual conversation. 

After a few breaths Quistis returned to form. She opened a drawer and revealed two spoons. She slid one to Rinoa. Quistis continued to stand while stirring the soup in her bowl. Simply asking her to go to the University tomorrow had turned Quistis into a bashful mess. Even as her body and mind raged against her, Rinoa didn’t have it in her to turn Quistis down.

Especially without good reason. "I… Well, okay. Yeah, I'd like to tour the campus."

"Good," Quistis exhaled. She lifted the bowl to her face instead of leaning over. Rinoa watched as she silently sipped a spoonful. Steam fogged her glasses. Thin eyebrows furrowed before she took them off and placed them on the counter.

“Are those reading glasses? Or do you wear them all the time?” While the glasses did compliment the professor’s facial features, Rinoa enjoyed the view of Quistis’ bare face. There was something about her gaze that was lost behind the lenses. 

“I’m nearly blind without them,” Quistis confessed. Seeming embarrassed by the attention, she set her bowl down, retrieved her glasses, and turned her back to Rinoa to start washing dishes. Dirty anything in her house probably drove Quistis crazy.

Without the welcome distraction of Quistis’ bare face, Rinoa forced her attention back to her soup. 

Stirring the chunky red liquid instigated every bodily revolution she was fighting to suppress. The small hairs on her arm stood to attention. It coursed through her body again. That electricity. She dropped her spoon back into the bowl when it sparked, causing some soup to splatter onto the counter. 

The red splotch on the otherwise flawless counter spread. Her eyes fixated on the wet mark. It transformed into a memory of blood spilled on the floor, silencing those ghastly spectres.

Visions and words returned in a crimson haze. Rinoa dug the heels of her palms hard against her eyes, willing the blood and magic to disappear. 

Instead of vanishing, they only grew louder. Their words pounded in her head; nonsensical rantings and accusations… Except for one statement that turned her blood cold.

"Rinoa!” A hand clamped down hard on her shoulder, shaking. “What's wrong? What happened?"

The words were on her tongue, begging to be acknowledged. If she spoke them, she would be sick. 

Rinoa buried her face in the folds of Quistis’ shirt. She was not sturdy and hard like Squall, but she was a source of human comfort Rinoa desperately craved. She clung to Quistis as the tears poured, praying this minimal support would keep her from going over the edge as she admitted what she knew in her heart to be true. 

"He's not coming back."


	4. Every Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quistis is never going to get any work done.

Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two…

Quistis counted each tick of the second hand on the wall clock. Time’s persistent march soothed her almost as much as counting. Wielding the comforts of both did her little good. 

Quistis scrubbed every inch of her kitchen, washed the dishes, and counted every movement of the second hand three times over. 

One hundred and eighty-one…

She stood outside the closed bathroom door in silent vigil. Each time Rinoa retched into her toilet, a part of her died inside. 

The toilet flushed. Another sniffle.

“Can I use your shower?” 

Quistis swallowed. “Yes. The towels are in the closet.” 

Shuffles and the rush of water pouring from the faucet broke the silence. Months had passed since another person was in her bathroom, and this was the first time another woman used her shower. The meticulously constructed walls she had built around herself and her privacy crumbled within an instant. It didn’t matter that Rinoa was another woman and Quistis was just doing what any decent person would do. 

It was too much. For all the uncertainty and anxiety Rinoa’s presence caused, Quistis hated the emptiness when she wasn’t around more.

She had to stop thinking. Move onto the next logical thing. Rinoa was showering. When she got out of the shower she would dry off and get dressed. But the only clothes she had were those dirty pajamas, and none of Quistis’ clothes would fit her petite frame. She had no idea where Rinoa lived… not that there would be time to go out and get her anything.

Her cell phone remained on the island where Rinoa left it. An idea came to mind. Quistis unlocked her phone and searched for Selphie’s number. She called before each time she stopped by to visit, both times Rinoa was sound asleep. 

“Heya!”

Annoying as her voice was, Quistis breathed a sigh of relief when she answered. “Rinoa is awake. She’s taking a shower now. I don’t have any clothing that will fit her.”

“No biggie. I’ve got some of her clothes here. She stays over a lot.”

“Can you bring them?”

“Sure thing. How’s Rinny doing?” 

Quistis had little desire to dwell on the details. But they certainly could not speak of it when she arrived in person either. “Not well. Her boyfriend. She said he is not returning. She has been sick since.”

Uncomfortable silence followed. Quistis thought there was an issue with the cellular service until Selphie’s delayed response. “Yeah… That’s about all I got out of her too. Okay I’ll be right there.”

“Okay.”

“Want a coffee or anything?”

It was late for caffeine. Quistis rarely drank more than one cup daily, but she had not slept well in her reading chair watching over Rinoa. Nor had she finished grading the assignments she planned for her weekend. It was going to be a long night. “Yes please. Black.”

“See ya soon!”

Despite the grave circumstances, combined with the fact that they just met, Selphie was casual and friendly, as if they’d known each other for years. 

Quistis ended the call. One crisis averted. She looked down at her shirt, damp with Rinoa’s tears. The warmth had long since faded. It was against her nature to be unpresentable, no matter who her audience was. 

She entered her bedroom. An unmade bed, clutter on the nightstand… This would not do. After swapping her damp shirt for a crisp black blouse, she stripped the bed. Rinoa’s scent was not a problem, but the accompanying stench of liquor was. The nightstand had a foreign object. A cell phone. Quistis picked it up. A quick attempt to power it on reinforced her suspicions: the battery was dead. 

The book she spent most of the weekend reading needed to be returned to the bookshelf. Quistis picked it up and studied the cover. _Static Electricity: Understanding, Controlling, Applying_. It was a fascinating and educational read, for someone like herself who was a novice on the subject. While she needed the basic knowledge if she was going to help Rinoa, it said nothing on the specialized topic of unpredictable discharges coming from humans.

She collected the catalog as well. Given the recent development, Quistis knew Rinoa would not be enrolling before the deadline. It was not enough time to process her grief. Rinoa would not be in a place to make such life altering decisions anytime soon. Ready to put the clutter away, Quistis turned and startled when she was met with Rinoa standing in her bedroom entrance.

“Sorry,” Rinoa apologized. “I saw this hanging up in the bathroom.”

Over her initial surprise, Quistis realized Rinoa was wearing her bathrobe. The sleeves were too long and the white trim pooled around her feet. Rinoa tucked a strand of towel-dried hair behind an ear. If Quistis had to guess, she was feeling sheepish and shy after everything that had occurred. The hot water brought flush to her normally pale cheeks.

“It’s fine,” Quistis blurted. “Selphie is on her way with some of your clothes.”

“What?” Panic struck Rinoa’s face. 

Quistis’ pulse quickened. What had she done wrong? How was that a bad thing? The last thing she wanted was to upset Rinoa. And it wasn’t because she was afraid of her.

“She didn’t go to my apartment, did she?” Rinoa advanced, frantic while Quistis failed to grasp what the problem could be.

“She said you left clothes at her house.”

“Oh. Right.” Rinoa breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry.”

Quistis got the message loud and clear. Rinoa didn’t want anyone going to her home. Even Selphie, who she was supposedly close to. She was slightly comforted to know she was not the only one who got anxious about others being in her private space. 

“She is bringing coffee. She didn’t ask if you wanted one.” Quistis paused. “Do you drink coffee?”

“Oh, just the super chocolatey crap that’s more sugar than coffee.” Rinoa’s lips curled in a half-hearted smile. “Selphie knows my order.”

Quistis was unsure whether to offer Rinoa food again or not. She doubted Rinoa had much of an appetite so soon after vomiting. “Selphie should be here soon.”

She went to the living room. Grading assignments couldn’t wait any longer. Losing herself in equations was preferable to playing a guessing game with Rinoa’s feelings. She returned the book and catalogue to the shelf before sitting on the couch with her laptop. Just as she logged into her faculty account, Rinoa was sitting beside her. 

“You have a really nice place.” 

“Thank you.” Quistis readjusted her glasses. Her attention never left the monitor. In this close proximity Quistis felt the electric thrum of her presence. It was far from the erratic, anomalous energy from before. Now it was subdued, and somewhat comforting.

Rinoa folded her legs beneath her on the couch. Transitioning into grading papers proved difficult with an audience, despite knowing Rinoa was too entrenched in her misery to pay Quistis much mind. 

She was not finished the first student’s assignment when the buzzer by her door went off. Quistis closed her laptop and walked to the door. She pressed the button on the small display to turn on the video camera. Selphie was standing at the main entrance, coffee in one hand, other on her hip. A backpack and purse hung from her shoulders. 

Quistis pressed the green unlock button and used the intercom. “Come in.”

Rinoa was standing now. She watched Quistis with an air of concern. The fluffy white bathrobe nearly consumed her. Rinoa looked like she was sinking into a fluffy cloud. The Phoenix ring was still on the chain around her neck. It was nondescript now; ordinary silver instead of a glowing molten conduit. 

“Hey guys!” Selphie greeted with cheer and a slight bit of caution. When Rinoa approached and reached for her coffee, her friend shied away. The wince was slight, but Quistis caught it, and so did Rinoa, as made evident by the disappointment in her dark eyes. 

Quistis took the only cup labeled “black.” Bringing the rim to her lips, she inhaled the aromatic blend. Steam fogged her glasses. 

Rinoa giggled. “Thanks for bringing coffee and my stuff, Selphie.”

Selphie plucked the last styrofoam cup from the carrier. One sip and she visibly relaxed. Selphie handed Rinoa the backpack and sat on a stool. “Anything for my bestie! How ya feeling? Quisty taking good care of you?”

Quisty? Quistis snorted into her coffee cup.

“I’m sorry… Doctor Trepe,” Selphie grinned. 

“I’ve been sleeping for a while I guess.” Rinoa started rummaging through her backpack. Satisfied, she looked up and graced Quistis with the kind smile she missed. “But yeah, I’d say she is taking good care of me. I even got the bed.”

Rinoa’s tone assumed a lilt Quistis did not recognize. Her cheeks turned warm, thanks to the hot beverage.

“Yes, thank you for the coffee,” Quistis mumbled into her drink.

“I’ll be right back.” Rinoa scooted off to the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Under normal circumstances, she would say nothing. Sticking her nose where it didn’t belong was not her style for a multitude of reasons. But Rinoa’s haunting disappointment when Selphie shied away propelled her to speak. 

“You’re afraid of her.”

Selphie scoffed. “Hah! As if.” She rolled her eyes for effect.

“If I can see it, so can she.” Rinoa had demonstrated keen empathetic skills. She had Quistis read in less than a handful of short exchanges. Which told Quistis Rinoa likely knew Selphie inside and out.

Selphie slouched. “Okay, fine… Maybe a little,” she whispered. “But you would be too if you were there.” 

Quistis had only witnessed the aftermath. Despite letting Rinoa into her home, sleep in her bed, and use her shower, part of her still did not want to know. She always prided herself on her continued pursuit of knowledge. Why was she running from it now?

“Has she said anything about what happened?” Selphie asked.

Quistis shook her head. “No.” 

“So… She either doesn’t wanna talk about it or doesn’t remember,” Selphie surmised.

“Amnesia?” Quistis crossed her arms over her chest. How could Selphie suggest something as serious as amnesia so casually? “I don’t think—“

The patter of Rinoa’s bare feet as she came around the corner from the bedroom interrupted their conversation. She was dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue tank top. Combined with a light coat of makeup, Rinoa was looking a bit more like the friendly bartender Quistis had come to know. The misery was plain on her face, but it was a start. 

“Thanks again.” Rinoa grabbed her drink and began to circle around the island, only to be intercepted by Selphie. As if to prove her support, or bravery, Selphie pulled Rinoa into a hug. 

Rinoa’s arms wrapped around her friend in an automatic, almost involuntary gesture. There was no feeling or emotion. She was not clinging to Selphie as she had to Quistis’ shirt. No tears or cries for comfort. Rinoa was detached.

“So you wanna come back to my place?” Selphie asked.

Every muscle in her body tensed. They hadn’t discussed this. Selphie never said she planned to take Rinoa away. 

“Um… Well, actually…” Rinoa separated herself from Selphie and turned her attention to Quistis. “I was just gonna stay here with Quistis for a bit. If that’s okay. I know it probably sounds stupid but I really don’t wanna go back to our place so soon.”

Tears welled in Rinoa’s eyes at the thought of going home, presumably the home she shared with her boyfriend who was never to return. 

“Oh, uh… Yeah. Of course,” Selphie stuttered. She was as surprised by the request as Quistis, who assumed Rinoa would want to be with her close friend over a stuffy professor she barely knew.

Quistis wanted Rinoa to stay. She could not pinpoint the reason, exactly. Watching after Rinoa was a purely samaritan gesture, she told herself. After all, the young woman entertained her broodiness when she was drowning her sorrows at the tavern. Never mind the fact that Rinoa was being paid to do so. 

By the time Quistis realized Rinoa and Selphie were staring in anticipation of her reaction, an awkward silence had filled the air.

“What is it?”

Rinoa cleared her throat. “Is it okay if I stay here tonight?”

How was that even a question? “Of course. You’re going to Balamb University with me in the morning.”

“See?” Rinoa turned to Selphie and smiled. “Don’t worry about me. Go have fun.”

“Okay…” Selphie seemed skeptical but also not in the mood to argue. “But I better not see your face at work for at least a week! I’ll drop off your paycheck tomorrow. You need some time to yourself ya know!”

One of Rinoa’s hands flew to the phoenix ring. Face downcast, she nodded. “I know.”

“Call me later!” Selphie yelled as she practically hopped out of the room.

“Mine’s broken,” Rinoa mumbled beneath her breath, which Selphie likely didn’t hear. 

“I thought the battery was just dead. You can use mine,” Quistis offered. 

“Thanks,” Rinoa sighed without making eye contact. She hugged her chest and continued staring at the floor dejectedly. 

Quistis had no experience consoling anyone after the sudden loss of a loved one. She couldn’t even handle her own emotions well, as made evident by all the time she spent at Angelo’s Tavern after getting fired. She focused on what she could do for the lonely girl. 

“I have to get back to my work. Do you want to watch television?” Quistis gestured to the couch they sat in before Selphie interrupted.

Without waiting for a response, Quistis took her coffee and made herself comfortable on the farside of the couch with her laptop. After powering the device on, Rinoa approached the opposite side and stared at the blank television.

“Here.” Quistis opened the coffee table drawer and revealed the remote. 

“Thanks.” Rinoa sat beside her on the couch. She folded her legs beneath herself. It was a peculiar way to sit on cushioned furniture. There was enough space for Rinoa to sit against the other armrest. Instead, her knee and a bare foot rubbed against Quistis’ leg. Did she have no concept of personal space?

She knew Rinoa meant nothing by it, so she stayed quiet and dove into her work. Aside from the occasional toe wriggle or squirm, Rinoa was still and quiet. This was calming. Much less tense than sitting beside him. She always hated sitting beside his anger and resentment.

Quistis never understood how people found shared moments of solitude between two people peaceful. Until now.

The channel surfing droned on, and Quistis eventually tuned it out as she breezed through correcting the latest assignment for her Statistics 101 class. Mean, median, and mode questions, flavored with some word problems that tripped up the less observant students who rushed through their homework. 

Drinking the last sip of her coffee, Quistis glanced at the clock for the first time since sitting down. It was already ten. And she still had calculus problems to review and student emails to check. 

She cast a sideways glance at Rinoa, who hadn’t so much as sighed or cleared her throat the entire time. Glossy dark eyes stared at the television. She was watching a sitcom, based on the audience laughter reels that played on repeat every minute or so. The attempt to cheer herself up did not seem to be working. Rinoa wasn’t crying anymore, though Quistis wasn’t sure she preferred this indifferent shell.

The professor returned to her work, fighting hard against the nagging image of Rinoa’s vacant expression tugging at the back of her mind. Part of her was grateful to have a new face haunting her. 

The other part demanded this fascination with Rinoa to stop. It was distracting. Pointless. Worse than pointless, it was counterproductive. Degenerative. Had she so soon forgotten how letting others in destroyed her? 

No. Of course not. She would never forget, despite wishing she could forget every second of every day. Sixty seconds for every sixty minutes of every hour in the day… 

86,400 futile attempts to forget. 

It was exhausting.

Amnesia never sounded so sweet. 

Quistis almost dropped her laptop when Rinoa’s weight suddenly leaned against her. Black hair tickled her ear as Rinoa’s head slumped onto her shoulder. Craning her neck to check Rinoa’s face confirmed she had fallen asleep. 

Quistis relaxed into the unintentional warmth Rinoa’s body provided. She closed her eyes. For a brief moment, she remembered nothing but Rinoa’s smile. 

And it was magical.


	5. Rival’s Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A haunt from the past returns, accompanied by some startling revelations.

Touring Balamb University was the distraction she needed. The University was modern and diverse. In the time they spent wandering the property, Rinoa viewed lecture halls with state of the art technology, lush gardens with colorful foliage, and a wide array of eateries that made her stomach rumble as her nose picked up trace aromas of cuisine as they walked by. If Rinoa were looking to enroll, she would have been hard-pressed to find anything negative about this prestigious school. 

And Quistis knew everything there was to know about Balamb University. Every plaque listing a memorial, or a donation, had a story behind it that she recited without fail. Listening to the stories behind each wealthy donor was better than dwelling on her own turmoil. 

After waking up alone on Quistis’ couch in the middle of the night, she struggled. Rage and despair fought for dominance. Waves of nausea were peppered with the voices. While she did not understand the words, their intentions were quite clear. She curled into a fetal position and squeezed Squall’s ring in her fist, feeling its warmth and focusing on the light shining through her fingers. Every time she was on the brink of losing herself, the beacon burning in her palm brought her back. 

Then morning came, and Quistis made sure she was up and ready to go.

Quistis nearly perfected the art of avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Now, as she had since the morning, she was polite and slightly awkward. At least the professor seemed to be enjoying their stroll through the campus. They kept at a leisurely pace, Rinoa desperately clinging to Quistis’ words and ignoring everything inside of her. As the morning hours dragged on, the nausea in her belly turned to hunger, and the anguish turned to interest. Interest in the University, but an unexpected interest in her host as well. 

Rinoa came to learn she was not the only person with an interest in Quistis Trepe. The longer her personal tour went on, the more she couldn’t help but notice students swarming around them. Not only that, but they were following. Without having the manners to even pretend being inconspicuous about it. 

Quistis acted as if she didn’t notice their stares and whispers. The possessive way they stared at Quistis, not to mention the threatening glares shot in her direction, were creepy. It took all of Rinoa’s self-control not to say something. Quistis didn’t act disturbed by them. And besides, the last thing Rinoa wanted to do was to embarrass Quistis at work. That would have been a fine way to repay her hospitality.

“And here we have Moomba Hall, home of the Mathematics Department. My office is number fourteen.” Quistis led Rinoa into a previously unexplored wing from outdoors. Portraits of famous mathematicians—whose names Rinoa did not know until Quistis told her—lined the hallways. The narrow space did nothing to detract their growing following. Their whispers became impossible to ignore. Most of them were speculating about her; a stranger, hanging out with the infamous introvert they all admired. 

The students definitely did not approve. Their depreciation of her was gross, but not as gross as their unhealthy obsession with Quistis.

“Umm… Quistis?”

"And this is my office." Quistis spread an arm out, pointing at the office number and her name engraved onto a plaque dead center on the closed door. As she reached into her purse for her office key, the hovering crowd grew bolder.

“Dr. Trepe, I wanted to ask you about the homework assignment.”

“Professor, what’s your opinion on Friday’s presentation?”

Question after question, each student raising their voice above the others, clamoring forward like journalists chasing a celebrity. Rinoa had never seen anything like it.

Quistis opened the door to her office and turned to face the crowd. “I’m sorry everyone. There will be no office hours today.”

A collective sigh and a few despondent moans filled the hallway. Rinoa did not hesitate when Quistis ushered her into the quiet confines of her office, shutting the door behind them.

“What the hell was that all about?” 

Quistis was dropping her keys into her purse. She looked up with a clueless, almost bewildered expression. “What?”

“Your stalkers. What’s their deal?”

“You mean students?” Rinoa couldn’t tell if Quistis was being intentionally thick. “They’re harmless. Eager, is all.”

“Eager. Sure,” Rinoa scoffed. She suspected she had a different idea of what they were eager about.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Quistis offered as she sat behind her desk. 

Rinoa walked around behind Quistis, to a small window overlooking the campus library. She idly watched as students walked into the library, often with friends and with a cup of coffee. 

After observing the students going about their business for a few minutes, Rinoa turned her attention back indoors. Quistis’ squared shoulders and rigid back faced her. The professor was typing away at an email from the looks of it. Trying not to snoop, Rinoa instead appreciated how the afternoon sunlight livened the tidy room. 

There were enough materials in her office to make it cluttered. That is, if the office belonged to anyone but Quistis. Professor Trepe kept all of the text books arranged alphabetically in a bookshelf on the west wall. She wasn't one for frivolous decorations. Her desk, located in the center of the room, supported nothing more than her computer, a phone, and a neat stack of papers. Much like her home, there were no photographs or pictures hanging on the walls. A pair of wooden chairs leaned against the opposite wall, but Rinoa wasn't interested in sitting down.

She walked over to the bookshelf. Hardcover textbooks were tightly packed side by side. She touched the binding with her fingertips, tracing the embossed titles: _Calculus, Statistics and Logic, Advanced Algebra…_

Rinoa smiled, remembering the trouble she had with mathematics in high school. She silently bet that if she randomly chose any question from one of these texts, Quistis could recite the equation, explain the process, and answer it. The young woman learned a long time ago that her brain did not function around numbers and logic, making people like Quistis a confounding anomaly to her.

Rinoa propped her bottom on the corner of her new friend's desk. "I think it's amazing that you crammed so much knowledge into such a little space. And so efficiently, too."

The compliment felt empty as she spoke it.  
After all Quistis had done for her in such a short amount of time, commenting on how she arranged her work office was vapid. 

“Thank you.” Quistis looked up from her monitor and offered a polite smile. 

Still, even that bland compliment brought a smile to the blonde’s thin lips, in turn making Rinoa smile. Bright blue eyes stared at her through lenses. So much like Squall… 

The intelligence. The loneliness. Rinoa somehow kept her attention for longer than a brief second without Quistis turning away. Staring into her bright blue eyes was even more relaxing than listening to her speak.

As if reading her thoughts, the professor cleared her throat and turned her attention to the closed door. Before Rinoa could ask what was so interesting about it, the door was swinging open.

"When are you going to do something about those annoying Trepies?”

“Trepies?” Rinoa echoed the stranger’s last word. His face was downcast, wiping the sleeve of his grey suit as if brushing off dirt. 

“That’s what I said.” His blond head looked up at her. Cold, piercing blue eyes sneered. His handsome face was marred by a diagonal scar slicing his face from above his left eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, ending just below his right eye. 

A mirror image of Squall’s scar.

“No. You can’t be,” Rinoa gasped when the realization of who exactly he was hit her square in the chest. Blood pumped through her body, pounding her ear drums and staining her vision. 

“Can’t be what?” His gruff voice barked in annoyance.

Every cell in her body came alive. Energy crackled through her veins. The short hairs on her arms stood on end. 

The voices. Not Squall’s voice, telling the story of the older “brother” who incessantly bullied him. Who bore down on him with his calculating azure glare. Who goaded him into fighting almost daily, until running off like the coward he was the day Squall injured him. 

“Well?” 

Rinoa barely heard him speak. Nor did she register his advancing footsteps. All of her willpower was focused on keeping the bloodthirsty voices at bay. Her fingers wrapped around the phoenix ring. As it’s glow dimmed, her mind cleared, shoving those grating whispers back to the corner of her mind where she shoved every inconvenient thought.

“You shouldn’t be here, Seifer,” Quistis whispered, stopping him short and snapping Rinoa out of her daze. They simultaneously turned their heads at the professor. 

Quistis had risen to her feet. All of the color drained from her face. Quistis never showed fear around her unpredictable powers, but she was showing fear now. 

And it wasn’t directed at her.

“Or else what? You’re going to tattle on me?” His ire was redirected to Quistis. The shift did not relieve the tension in her shoulders. In fact, Rinoa’s anxiety intensified. 

Quistis swallowed. “Or else I will press charges. That was the agreement.” Each syllable was strained. 

Rinoa pieced together what the agreement Quistis referenced must be. Rival, whose true name Rinoa never heard until just now, was even more vile than Squall knew. Bullying his younger brother was only the beginning. He was a despicable excuse for a human being, if he could even be considered that. 

No, he was a monster. He tormented and abused Squall when they were younger. He took advantage of his position as Dean and intimidated Quistis, harassing her in ways Rinoa did not want to begin to imagine. And who knew how many likely victims there were between them? 

Why was the love of her life, an honest and decent man, condemned to death, when scum like Rival were allowed to live?

She owed it to his memory. She owed it to the woman who accepted her and treated her with nothing but kindness. The carnal lust for revenge through violence resurfaced. This time, Rinoa did not fight it.

She succumbed.

The seductive voices pounded in her ears. Her voice joined theirs; a choir of foreign words promising a slow death to those who opposed her. Static charged every cell in her body, alight with power. It was chaotic and cursed. 

No, she was chaotic and cursed. And if this was what her existence was fated for, at least she could avenge Squall and Quistis and anyone else this demon hurt.

_“Urite mala mundi.”_

Burn. Burn the treacherous Rival. His neck clenched within her grasp was satisfying. Crimson heat and stubborn bright eyes. Even when staring death in the eye, he refused to plead. He strained and cursed, but did not beg. 

She would break him, she vowed. 

And that was her final lucid thought before a familiar voice summoned her back from the enticing realm of ultimate power.

“Rinoa, stop!”

—-

Tiny marshmallows floated about the top of her drink in a nonsensical pattern. She tried forcing them into a familiar symbol, like a star or a smiley face, going so far as to manipulate their positioning with a spoon. Still, there was no order in the chaos.

“You seemed surprised to see him. Why?” 

Quistis’ words were a gentle prodding, and yet the sound drove spikes of pain through her eyeballs. The headache was intense; a tradeoff for losing hours of consciousness. 

That was not to say Rinoa had a clear recollection of events after Rival’s appearance. There was bloodlust and rage. Fire and vengeance. The irresistible crimson galaxy living inside of her burst… And whenever that happened, she feared for what she might have done.

“I just… Never got to meet Rival when he was alive. I didn’t even know his name before today.” Rinoa curled her knees into her chest, balancing her hot chocolate so as not to spill any. She managed a sip of the scalding, sweet liquid. “I only knew him as Rival… My boyfriend’s older brother who did nothing but bully him and make his life miserable.”

“Brother?” Quistis sat beside Rinoa on the couch with a cup, presumably coffee. “Seifer never said anything about having a younger brother.”

“They were both adopted. Raised as brothers, from what I know.” Rinoa had never shared Squall’s stories of childhood trauma with anyone before. Not even Selphie. Not because Squall swore her to secrecy, but because it never felt right using his disturbing childhood as a talking point. 

Rinoa heard the vibrating of a cell phone. It was a muffled rumbling, and still the sound repeatedly stabbed just behind her eyes. She thought Quistis would answer the call. Instead, the professor tapped the screen and moved the device to the coffee table. 

“I was an orphan too,” Quistis confessed. Rinoa looked up at her, only for Quistis to redirect her shy gaze into her drink. “Bounced around from foster home to foster home. Never found a family who wanted to keep and raise me as their own. I was always envious of children in the homes like your boyfriend and Seifer, who got adopted. The grass is not always greener, I suppose.”

“I guess not,” Rinoa agreed. She found it hard to believe Quistis was not a desirable child to adopt. Wasn’t it always the cute ones with blonde hair and blue eyes who were adopted quickly? Rinoa didn’t have a way of asking about Quistis’ past that didn’t seem rude, and her head hurt too much for intimate conversation.

That explained the complete void of any familial ties, at least. The utter lack of pictures of parents or siblings suddenly made sense.

Rinoa drank more of her hot chocolate as they sat in silence. Without her driving the conversation, it died. She didn’t mind the quiet; it was peaceful, and her headache slightly subsided. 

This blissful ignorance couldn’t go on forever. Rinoa had to know. Gathering her courage, she turned to Quistis. “What happened? Tell me what I did. Please.”

The steam fogging Quistis’ lenses was a poor veil for the hesitance in her eyes. The demure blonde had little concern for her own safety and wellbeing, as made obvious by the fact that she continued to allow Rinoa into her home. What was even stranger was Quistis’ urge to protect Rinoa from herself. 

Whatever happened, it must have been bad. Rinoa was almost grateful for the headache; it kept her imagination from running wild with fabricated scenarios of what she may have done.

“Once you saw Seifer’s face, your demeanor changed. The static electricity that often surrounds you increased. Your hair began floating around your face. You whispered something… Latin, I believe… Then you somehow lifted him from the floor by his neck. With one hand.” 

Quistis paused. She shook her head, questioning what her eyes had seen. Rinoa did not doubt her version of events. She had displayed enough power before to frighten Selphie. Picking up a six foot tall, sturdy man didn’t seem so outrageous anymore.

“Then in your other hand, you…” Quistis shook her head. 

“Just tell me,” Rinoa pressed. 

“Fire appeared.” Quistis suspended a hand between them, palm upward. She stared at Rinoa with an arched eyebrow. After a few awkward seconds Rinoa realized what she wanted. 

She mimicked Quistis’ gesture with her left hand. Fresh, bulbous blisters decorated her palm. Rinoa cringed. They looked exceedingly painful, and yet she felt nothing besides the throbbing in her head. 

Rinoa flinched as Quistis inspected her hand. She gingerly poked at the blisters, careful not to hurt her. “We should wrap this.”

“Then what happened?” 

“Then I said your name and put my hand on your shoulder. And you snapped out of it. And, well,” Quistis smiled, showing her dimples for the first time. Then she laughed! It was a lilting, soothing sound with the power to temporarily relieve her pain. “You dropped Seifer.”

Rinoa couldn’t help but grin. “Fell flat on his ass, did he?”

Quistis nodded. “And left without saying a word.”

Rinoa could see why his deflated ego was so cathartic to her. “He’s a coward, like most bullies. When they were kids, Rival always antagonized my boyfriend. He wasn’t happy unless he could get a rise out of him. One day he forced Squall into fighting with sticks he found in the woods. He sharpened them too, I guess. He cut Squall across the face, leaving a nasty scar like this.” Rinoa traced a diagonal line across her face. “And Squall returned the favor. Anyway, after that Seifer never picked fights with him again.”

“Seifer never explained where his scar came from,” Quistis pondered before taking another sip of her coffee. “Squall. That’s…”

“My boyfriend, yeah.” Rinoa sighed. Tears stung her eyes. The memories Rival’s arrival revived threatened to unravel her. She couldn’t become enslaved by grief again. Not so soon after losing herself to the opposing, dangerous force growing inside of her. “That’s how I knew it was Rival.”

They needed to change the subject, but Rinoa knew better than to address Quistis’ history with the man. “I find it hard to believe he was the Dean of Balamb University.”

“His parents pulled some strings to get him the position,” Quistis explained.

Their parents. Rinoa perked. “You know them?”

“Of course. Edea Kramer works at Balamb University. And her husband, Cid Kramer, is the Headmaster at Balamb Military School.”

Rinoa unfolded her legs and walked over to the window overlooking Balamb. It was early afternoon still. Quistis hadn’t mentioned if she was blowing off her responsibilities to babysit her again. Everything after meeting Rival was a blur. 

And now she knew who Squall’s adopted parents were. Not from him, but a woman she barely knew. Given their different last names, Rinoa never would have guessed. She only saw Headmaster Cid once, at Squall’s advancement ceremony. Squall never mentioned the Headmaster was his father, nor was she invited to any other military academy function.

What else could Squall have been hiding from her?

Rinoa finished her hot chocolate and abandoned her empty mug on the windowsill. She clutched the Phoenix. It was becoming a source of comfort, though the bitterness surfacing in the lie by omission from the man she loved tainted the experience. She stared at the blisters on her opposite hand.

She was murderous and on fire. Choking a man much taller and larger than her. Chanting a language she didn’t even know. 

Yet none of that stopped Quistis from approaching her and touching her. 

If she hurt Quistis, she would never forgive herself. Rinoa knew the right thing to do. Though she didn’t know if she had the resolve to see it through.

“I should go.” 

Rinoa stared at the quiet streets below. Balamb’s mid-afternoon lull was easier to stare at than her new friend’s face, likely painted with shock and disappointment. “There’s a lot of things about myself I don’t know. I can’t risk hurting you. Whatever my problems are… They’re mine. It wasn’t fair to get you involved.”

Feet shuffled. Silence lingered. Rinoa felt uncomfortable in Quistis’ home for the first time. 

“I chose to become involved,” Quistis eventually argued. Rinoa startled. She hadn’t expected much of an argument. “I want to help.”

Why? They were hardly more than strangers. 

“And I don’t want to hurt you. Please.” The last thing she wanted was to lose this newfound companionship, but she didn’t see any other option that didn’t end in disaster.

“You haven’t hurt me. And I don’t believe you will.”

A flash of pink and Quistis was standing beside her, staring out the window as well. “I believe we can get to the bottom of this together. You shouldn’t be alone right now.” A hard swallow. Voice straining. “And neither should I.”

Of course. Rinoa realized how selfish she was being. The whole ordeal with Seifer must have been difficult for her. Working at a bar taught Rinoa the body language women used when they were uncomfortable around men. And given her words, that was probably the first time Quistis had seen him since her allegations caused him to lose his job. Rinoa had yet to process Rival’s existence as a menacing figure in her new friend’s life; not counting the other revelations made today. 

But now wasn’t the time for that. She needed to be here for Quistis. Partially out of duty for the compassion Quistis continued to show her, and because it was the right thing to do, but also because Quistis was right. 

She shouldn’t be alone. But she had nowhere else to go. 

There was Selphie’s house, sure. But Selphie was afraid of her. That much was obvious. Quistis still did not back away, even after being there to witness her dangerous, unpredictable powers. 

“I’m sorry. That thing with Rival—Seifer, I mean… it must have been difficult.”

Quistis adjusted her glasses as she continued gazing out the window. The color had returned to her face. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rinoa gently pressed.

“Not really, no.”

Rinoa nodded. That was the answer she was expecting. “In that case, let’s eat some junk food and watch junk TV!”

“Rinoa,” Quistis began, but she was already in the kitchen, looking through the regrettably bare cupboards. No potato chips. No cookies. There wasn’t even any ice cream in the freezer. 

“I don’t keep much food in the house.”

“Obviously,” Rinoa muttered while closing the refrigerator. “That’s it. We’re going grocery shopping tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Quistis warily agreed. She didn’t mention Rinoa’s flip from wanting to leave to buying food together. In this particular instance, Rinoa was grateful not being called out on her hypocrisy. They both knew she really did not want to leave, and Qusitis’ bewildered agreement fell in line with their unspoken desire to remain close to one another.

“One out of two isn’t bad.” Rinoa practically dragged Quistis to the couch, grabbing the remote from the coffee stand on the way. 

“When you say ‘junk TV,’ what exactly are you referring to?”

Rinoa sat beside Quistis and grinned. The introvert was wide-eyed and frowning. Excited and trepidatious. She was a virgin to binging bad television. Rinoa, however, was a professional.

“Oh, you’ll see.” Reality television. Romcoms. Or maybe they should start with a shopping network. She channel surfed for a few minutes until Quistis begrudgingly decided on a home shopping special. To Rinoa’s surprise, Quistis began comparing the prices on television to similar products she saw in the supermarket. Her memory was outright amazing, if not somewhat scary.

After about an hour Rinoa talked her into ordering takeout. She still hadn’t picked up her check from Angelo’s, so she didn’t have much to contribute. Not that Quistis cared. She had money, as evident by her condo and clothing, and remained humbly mum on the topic. When it came time to pay for their Chinese food, Quistis firmly declined her gil and didn’t even allow her to help pay for the tip.

After switching to a reality TV show, Rinoa explained the ins and outs of the featured celebrity family between bites of food. It was the first real meal she’d eaten since word of his death… 

And the first time she was actually enjoying herself.

With Chinese food and the lingering headache wearing her down, Rinoa was unable to remain talkative for long. Feeling unreasonably tired, she leaned into Quistis as her glazed eyes stared at the flickering images on the screen for an undetermined amount of time.

“Rinoa?”

Rinoa mumbled. Grogginess replaced her headache. Her neck was sore, but she didn’t want to move away from Quistis’s warmth. “Hmm?”

“Thank you for staying.”

If only she could stay forever.


	6. Indulgence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quistis indulges in more than one rare delicacy.

Thirty-three... Thirty-four... Thirty-five.

Thirty-five bags of plain M&Ms. Twelve varieties of M&Ms that Quistis could see. That would make four hundred and twenty bags of just one type of candy. Which meant this one aisle likely held thousands of bags of chocolates. Were there truly so many people in Balamb purchasing this much saccharine garbage? The sheer excessivity of it made Quistis uneasy. Contrary to her fretting over how long it must take a grocery store in Balamb to sell thousands of bags of candy, Rinoa was suffering from indecisiveness. 

Quistis watched her bounce from one chocolate to another. She was not impatient, exactly; studying Rinoa’s mannerisms had become one of her new favorite past times. The slight frown stitching her brow as she balanced options in both of her hands like a scale kept her attention. The bandages Quistis had applied to Rinoa’s burned hand limited her mobility, but she acted as if she did not notice them.

If observing Rinoa’s reactions was not so amusing, she would have bought one of each so they could move on. While her mind was on the subject of chocolate, she realized Rinoa’s eyes were swirls of rich dark chocolate. A decadent sin one mustn’t indulge in too often. 

“Oh wait, I know!” Rinoa abandoned both options she had been considering before hopping to the other side of the aisle. The candy she was considering had boxed, rectangular containers instead of plastic bags. 

“We can get more than one type of chocolate,” Quistis said for the third time. “I really don’t mind.”

She felt Rinoa’s eye roll. “Yeah, sure. Says the woman who keeps no chocolate in the house and claims to never have PMS cravings.”

Quistis shrugged. She never gave much thought to cravings and other supposed side effects of menstruating. She cramped, she bled, and a few days later it was over. Like most of life’s experiences, she had no one to share growing pains with, or to teach her what to expect. None of her foster mothers cared to explain menstruation to her. Nor did she have any friends to discuss such things with. 

She would never forget when she had her first period. When she awoke in the middle of the night, in a puddle of her own blood, oblivious to why she was bleeding and cramping, her annoyed older foster sister threw a box of tampons at her and went back to sleep. 

It was not something to speak of, even to other women. Quistis had a suspicion Rinoa held no such inhibitions. Nothing was off the table for discussion where the bartender was concerned; except for her complicated feelings regarding her deceased boyfriend, whose name Quistis learned the day Seifer made the mistake of coming back into her life. 

Watching the sweet young woman fret over which type of candy to buy was the polar opposite of what she witnessed yesterday. Static and fire. Quistis did not believe in magic. Or at least, that these instances could not be explained by science and math. She believed currently unexplained phenomenons, like the incredible feats Rinoa had demonstrated in the short time they had known each other, were not vicarious acts of a supernatural being or any of the other ridiculous explanations people associated with the unexplainable. It was simply not yet thoroughly researched. 

Quistis had begun a scarce amount of research in her spare time, but had not yet stumbled across anything conclusive.

“What kind of pocky should we get?”

Quistis blinked. Rinoa’s question pulled her from her thoughts to the present, which at the precise moment meant staring at boxes of junk food. “What’s pocky?”

Rinoa gasped, staring at Quistis as if she had committed an obscene crime. “What! How do you not know what pocky is?! You know what? We’re getting one of each.”

Quistis read the lined displays on the shelf before Rinoa snagged them. Chocolate. Strawberry. Cookies and Cream. And matcha? Twelve sticks per box. Forty-eight biscuit sticks coated in creamy, sugary… stuff.

“You better eat them all,” Quistis mildly scolded in a voice that was reminiscent of the tone she used on her students. 

Truthfully, she did hope Rinoa ate plenty of them. Aside from when they ordered Chinese, Quistis had not seen her eat anything. Grocery shopping should help her at least have food in the house that Rinoa liked. 

If they could ever make it out of the candy aisle.

“Ummm. You’re helping me eat them, silly.” Rinoa nudged her before dropping the boxes in their shopping cart.

“Junk food and junk television again?” Quistis’ tone was disapproving, but Rinoa was not fooled. 

Of course she wasn’t fooled. That was part of why Quistis liked her. She had never met anyone who understood her without making embarrassing or obnoxious statements about her. Or they asked too many questions. Oh, how she hated questions.  
Rinoa, however, was patient and discreet.

“That’s right.” Rinoa winked. “Did you have any other plans?”

—

Another assignment graded. The apartment remained shrouded in silence. Her gaze once again flickered from her laptop to the woman sitting in the corner of her windowsill. Silhouetted against Balamb city doused in moonlight, her shadow was unmoving. Fingers wrapped around the phoenix ring. It was an unsuspecting piece of jewelry now. There was no glow resonating from it.

Each time the phoenix ring flared, it was in reaction to Rinoa. Her powers that Quistis was trying to sort out served as a catalyst, that much was certain. If the ring was calm, then so was Rinoa. 

The thought should have brought her comfort, but she only felt concern. Silence and brooding were concerning behaviors for anyone. On Rinoa they were especially alarming. Quistis did not draw attention to it, for fear of encouraging her to fake happiness on her behalf. Instead, she closely monitored Rinoa’s disposition between each statistics assignment she graded. 

Quistis used to relish silence. Now, at least when Rinoa was around, she hated the sound of nothing. Rinoa’s voice chattering about literally anything was her new favorite sound.

“I’m done,” Quistis announced as she closed her laptop. Rinoa did not react. Quistis stood, thinking the motion might draw her attention. Still nothing. 

Rinoa was lost inside of herself, likely enveloped in her own memories and misery. Quistis had never experienced the death of a loved one, but she did know all too well the danger in entertaining one’s personal darkness for too long.

“Rinoa?” Quistis channeled her assertive teaching voice, feeling guilty for using it on someone that was not a student. 

It worked. Rinoa emerged. Less than a second was all Quistis had to witness the abject despair before it transformed to a kind smile. Rinoa stood, released the ring, and practically skipped to the kitchen. “It’s about time! I’m starving.”

Grocery shopping with Rinoa gave Quistis an idea of what she liked to eat. After escaping the candy aisle, they filled their cart with all kinds of food. Rinoa was not especially selective. She didn’t cringe when Quistis picked up a selection of pre-packaged salads and other produce, but she also insisted on ramen, crackers, and other starchy foods Quistis would not have purchased otherwise. Her cupboards were stocked for the first time. After arranging the groceries for the better part of an hour, the sight was more welcoming than weary.

Quistis divided one of the salads between them as Rinoa began making sandwiches.

“So I was thinking…” Rinoa began while tearing into a package of sliced turkey. “I think tomorrow I’ll talk to Selphie. Get my paycheck and get back on the schedule.”

Quistis paused while grabbing two forks from the drawer directly in front of her. “Already? Are you sure?”

Rinoa nodded without looking away from what she was doing; paying an unusual amount of attention to detail while arranging sliced turkey. “I can’t sit around here all day. Or tag along while you’re working. Besides, I’d rather keep my mind busy, you know?”

Quistis did know. Probably more than anyone. 

“So I’ll walk over once the tavern is open and see Selphie. Give her a hand if she needs it.”

“I expect she’ll scold you for returning to work so soon,” Quistis guessed. Selphie was likely still afraid to be alone with Rinoa, though she kept that thought to herself.

“Yeah but she won’t argue too much. She needs the help. We only have a couple of unreliable part-timers. Her and I are the only full-time workers.”

“What about the owner?” Quistis asked.

“Oh. He lives out in Timber so he doesn’t come around much. He owns bars and restaurants all over the place. I’ve only met him a couple of times. Selphie’s like the unofficial manager and that’s only because she worked at one of his restaurants up in Trabia for a while.”

Quistis never would have guessed Selphie was from the northern tundra. She didn’t share the accent most of the students she’d met who were from there had. “I see.” 

“According to Selphie, she worked for his business since she was sixteen. She overheard him talking about opening a bar in Balamb and she was desperate to leave the cold, so he helped pay for her move here.”

“Sounds like a kind boss,” Quistis observed. Unlike the former Dean of Balamb University. A privileged, selfish asshole, who only obtained the position because of his well-connected parents. 

As if on cue, her cell phone rang. Quistis wiped her hands on a napkin before retrieving it from her pocket. 

Quistis was unsurprised by the name on the caller ID. This was the seventh time in two days she had called. She declined the call and placed her phone on the counter. Edea must have heard about Seifer breaching their no contact agreement and wanted to beg her not to press charges. 

Quistis had no desire to deal with any of it. 

Rinoa’s eyes were on her phone. They narrowed with curiosity, if not outright suspicion. “What else do you like on your sandwich? Tomato? Onion? What else did we buy?”

She left the counter to scour the refrigerator. Quistis heard her sorting through the produce drawer. “Lettuce and tomato. You?”

Rinoa straightened with a tomato in one hand and a head of romaine lettuce in the other. “Same.”

The pair finished with their dinner prep. Quistis’ gaze lingered on the dirty dishes in the sink, but Rinoa maneuvered her to the couch and the promise of relaxation.

“What do you wanna watch tonight?” Rinoa asked, as if Quistis had ever expressed any preference in the matter. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure why she even kept her overpriced cable package until Rinoa came around. 

“Ooh!” Rinoa exclaimed after browsing the guide for a few seconds. “Let’s watch this! I love these murder mystery documentaries.”

Keeping her thoughts from wandering to the book she wanted to finish reading, or the lecture she needed to finish preparing for tomorrow, was nearly impossible at first. As the show continued, Rinoa began engaging her by asking questions or making humorous commentary. Quistis knew what she was up to, so she played along, until she eventually forgot what she was so concerned about when they first sat down.

“What a sleezebag,” Rinoa commented when the credits began to roll. “You know, they say in most murders it's the jealous spouse who did it.”

In this case, she meant the husband who supposedly caught his wife in bed with his boss a week before she was found deceased. The entire show was overdramatized and the narration was annoying to listen to. Rinoa questioning and rebuking the questionable red herring, the manager the murdered woman slept with, was far more engaging.

“Is that so?” 

No sooner had Quistis placed her fork on her empty plate had Rinoa collected their dirty dishes and was rushing to deposit them in the sink. Before she knew what was happening, a collection of pocky boxes was deposited on her lap.

“What kind do you wanna try first?” Rinoa stood in front of her, leaning forward with her hands on her hips. As usual, she was completely oblivious to the concept of personal space. It didn’t upset or trigger her the way Seifer’s presence did. Rinoa’s demeanor was playful and innocent, not lecherous and cruel.

Quistis looked from one box to the next. She would be sampling at least one of each before the night was over; that much she was certain. 

“Chocolate, I suppose.”

Rinoa sagely nodded. “That’s the classic flavor.”

The candy connoisseur snatched the box of chocolate pocky sticks and tore into it. Quistis did not understand getting so excited about food. She failed to understand most extreme human behavior, as exemplified by the show they just finished watching. 

What sort of people could bring themselves to murder? To steal? To lie? 

To ruin someone else’s life for the sheer thrill of it? 

Seifer was that sort of person. Despite having it all: being adopted, having kind, nurturing parents who treated him as his very own, who wanted what was best for him, despite knowing that he was rotten to the core. 

Quistis wrapped her shawl tighter around her chest, drawing into herself. The very thought of him made her feel disgusting.

Rinoa straightened and cocked her head, waggling a pocky stick. Despite memories fouling her mood, Quistis couldn’t help but smile.

“Pocky for your thoughts?”

Quistis was not so keen on sharing her thoughts or eating pocky. As she considered Rinoa’s offer, she realized her best hope of getting Rinoa to open up was to show she trusted her with the thoughts and memories she guarded. It wasn’t as if anything she revealed would be earth shattering. Rinoa already had an idea of what went on, and she shared a similar opinion of Seifer through the lens of her boyfriend’s childhood. 

“I just had a thought. About Seifer.”

Rinoa tapped the chocolate end of the pocky stick against her lips, likely trying to read between the lines. She frowned and stepped back. “Was I too close? Sorry. If I’m invading your personal space just say so. I’m a hugger and all that. But if you’re not, because of, well, you know, I’ll try to be more considerate.”

“It isn’t like that. Not exactly.” Quistis hated explaining her thought process, but made an effort anyway. More than talking, she hated the idea of Rinoa feeling guilty over a poorly worded cop-out. “I mean, it was an indirect thought. It doesn’t bother me.” 

Sitting beside Rinoa on the couch. Feeling Rinoa slip into slumber with her head on her shoulder, listlessly watching television. These were grounding, comforting experiences she didn’t understand. “And then I compared it to how I cringe and can’t stand to be in the same room as him.”

Rinoa nodded. “Yeah. I noticed. Honestly, I don’t know how you kept so cool. Didn’t you wanna, like, punch him in the face? Or kick him in the nuts?”

Quistis chuckled at the image that implanted in her mind. Truthfully, she was still not roused to violence. She didn’t understand crimes of passion, violence, or murder. Nothing inside of her stirred to vengeance... If anything, she felt dead inside. 

Rinoa’s nature, while a big mystery, was full of emotion and life. Her reaction to Seifer proved she wanted to hurt him; to give him a taste of the suffering he inflicted on Squall and herself. 

“You took care of that for me. Thank you, by the way. That was the first time I felt like someone was looking out for me.”

“Like, ever?” More than intrigued, she sounded sad. 

“Ever,” Quistis admitted. 

Rinoa smiled and puffed her chest. “Well, I don’t know exactly what I did, but you’re welcome. He’s a dick.” She sat beside Quistis and handed over the pocky stick that had been bouncing against her mouth. 

Still feeling full from dinner, but knowing she couldn’t turn down the treat, she took a tentative bite. Milk chocolate followed by a satisfying crunch. The smooth texture of the chocolate coating juxtaposed with the biscuit inside was delicious. Now she understood why Rinoa was such a fan. “It’s good.”

“Try strawberry next. Pass me one.” Rinoa returned to her spot on the couch. Quistis opened the box that was on her lap. Strawberry aroma wafted to her nose; a sweet, but not overpowering scent. 

“Here.” Quistis slid one out and held it between them. Rinoa leaned forward, catching her by surprise when she took a bite from the pocky when it was still in her hands. Quistis blinked as Rinoa nonchalantly chewed and smiled. “Mmm. You can have the rest of that one. I want one of these.”

Her cheeks burned and she froze. Rinoa grabbed one of the other boxes from her lap and tore into it. “Aren’t you going to eat it?”

“Oh. Right.” She chastised herself for such a juvenile reaction. They were sharing food. There was no reason for the heat in her face and the fluttering in her chest. The rest of the stick went in her mouth, and she chewed it while staring into her lap. “It’s good,” she mumbled.

Rinoa smiled triumphantly, which Quistis did her best to ignore. “Maybe next time I suggest something you won’t give me such a hard time.”

She adjusted her glasses and shrugged. She couldn’t envision a scenario in which she wouldn’t entertain Rinoa’s carefree antics, but giving voice to the thought felt wrong. She looked up at Rinoa and returned the proud grin. “Maybe.”

\--

_A field stretched into the bright blue skyline. Petals, rose and white, floated in the breeze._

_She felt nothing, save for the calming effects of her surroundings on her spirit. Fluttering raven hair drew her attention. Standing with her back to her, wearing a soft blue cloak blending into the sky, was Rinoa. Her hair and clothes reacted to the blowing wind, but her body remained a statue, until a flash of light revealed a pair of wings sprouting from Rinoa’s back._

_White and blinding, but they were unmistakable. Wings. Angelic and heavenly._

_Rinoa extended a hand. Her attention was focused on it, oblivious to Quistis’ presence. One of the stray petals floated into Rinoa’s palm as if summoned into her grasp. It disappeared inside of her fist. Rinoa opened her hand, and the petal was now a black feather._

_The darkness spread. Carried by the wind, the inky feather fell apart, its pieces saturating the space around them. The infinite field became absorbed in darkness. Rinoa’s white wings straightened as pitch overpowered purity._

_When she could finally tear her attention from Rinoa’s blackened wings, a cruel grimace greeted her. Chocolate eyes were now yellowish-green, with an almost feline quality, devoid of anything remotely resembling the woman she knew._

_“Time… It will not wait.”_

\--

With a gasp and an electric jolt, Quistis emerged from the nightmare. Her heart raced, primarily from the disturbing dream. As she returned to her physical form, she realized a steady current was pulsating against her, fortified by warmth and flesh. 

“Sorry,” a meek voice mumbled against her chest. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Quistis whispered back. One of her hands emerged from beneath the blanket to stroke Rinoa’s fine hair. It was damp. She needed to count something. Anything.

One… Two…

“Did you have a bad dream?”

Three… Four strokes. 

“Yeah.”

Quistis did not think about the last time someone was in this bed. Nor did she consider the last time a body was pressed against hers, clothed or otherwise. There was only the shared understanding and intimacy, the strokes she continued to count until she drifted back to slumber…

And the hand around her waist; nails anchoring in the small of her back, fearful the demons may return to haunt her if she went back to sleep.


	7. White Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rinoa chases normalcy, but the entity inside of her has other ideas.

“Thanks Selphie,” Rinoa accepted the sealed envelope containing her paycheck. She folded and slipped it into her back pocket without checking the amount. Her attention was on the cosmopolitan drink her friend made. Selphie always mixed the perfect ratio of fruit juice to vodka; meaning they went down too smooth.

Rinoa had no plans to return to Quistis’ place drunk in the middle of the afternoon, but she did feel entitled to at least a buzz. 

“You’re sure you wanna come back to work? Like, super super sure?” 

“Yes! Super duper sure,” Rinoa insisted. Selphie seemed more at ease in her presence than the last time they saw each other. She didn’t shrink away whenever Rinoa’s hands drew close, nor did her hazel eyes constantly flick away like she was scared or nervous. Rinoa knew she needed to reassure her that there would not be another episode like before.

But it was not a promise she was comfortable making.

“I can’t apologize enough for what happened,” Rinoa tentatively began while wiping the condensation from her glass and avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“Well…” Selphie’s curled hair bounced along with her head as she hopped around behind the bar. Unlike most people’s deep thought, statuesque states, she was always in motion. “Do you have any idea what causes it? I mean, that was a big boom that came outta nowhere! Kaboom!” She accentuated her point by throwing her arms in the air. “Er, well, I guess it came outta you. I would’ve thought it was super awesome if it wasn’t, ya know, in here.”

Leave it to Selphie to try cheering her up through an appreciation of explosions. 

“Whatever it is, it seems to be triggered by my state of mind.” Ice cubes clattered as she set her empty glass on the coaster before her. “And it’s not like I’ll ever get worse news than that day…” 

Rinoa instantly wished she hadn’t said that. With how her luck was going lately, daring the universe to screw her life up even more was a poor idea. “Anyway, it’s not like it’s something I can go to a regular doctor for. Quistis has some ideas and she’s begun researching. I’m gonna become a lab experiment or something I bet.” 

An image of her sitting in a cage while Quistis, wearing a labcoat and holding a clipboard, adjusted her glasses and stared her down, came to mind. She smiled and shook her head at the ludicrous idea.

“You still staying with her?” Selphie took the glass away with an arched eyebrow. It seemed suggestive, but Rinoa wasn’t sure what the hidden message was supposed to be.

“Yeah.” 

“Rinny…” Selphie’s petite form leaned across the counter to pat the hands she didn’t realize she was clenching. This was the first physical contact they had in recent memory. “You can’t run away from it forever. You’ve gotta go get your stuff at some point.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about Squall and the apartment they shared. The frustration and outright anger boiled beneath the surface once again. “I don’t know if I can even get back into the apartment. It was all in his name and his parents don’t even know I exist. You know how I found out who his parents are?”

“Uhh…”

“Quistis! Quistis told me! His mom works at the university and his father is the fucking Headmaster at the military academy! Even when I went to his advancement ceremony and the Headmaster was right up there on the stage with him, he still didn’t say a word!”

Selphie squeezing her hands kept her from grabbing Squall’s ring. Rinoa was letting her emotions get the better of her, which was too dangerous, given her _condition._

She needed to vent, consequences be damned. The static entwined into her DNA sparked, reminding her of what would happen if she didn’t keep herself in check. 

“How did she know?” Selphie pressed. 

Rinoa took a deep, slow breath. She focused on Selphie’s hands, providing warmth and comfort. “I went with her to Balamb University. Squall’s brother was there. I didn’t even know his real name, either…”

“Yeah? What’s his name?”

“Seifer Almasy.” The sound of his name was vile. “He was the Dean until—“ Rinoa stopped herself. That wasn’t her story to tell.

“Until what?” 

“Until he got himself fired for being a total asshole.” The only thing that accelerated her pulse more than Squall’s suspicious omissions were the disturbing visions of how Seifer could have molested Quistis.

“Oh. Well, I’m sure Squall had his reasons. He was a good guy.”

Was. Now Squall was reduced to mere memories. If there was a reason behind his white lies, they died with him. Hiding the truth from her felt harder to accept than his death. Rinoa told him everything. She was completely transparent. An open book. From her upbringing as a General’s daughter in Deling, to her mysterious powers; there was nothing she didn’t share with the only person she had ever loved.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Selphie reassured as she sniffed. “We’ll figure something out.”

“What do you mean?” Rinoa felt her words slurring, and it wasn’t because she was drunk. 

“You can’t stay with Quistis forever. And if you can’t get back to your place with Squall, maybe Zone will help get you a down payment on an apartment or something. Like he did with me.”

Selphie was right. She couldn’t bum out on Quistis’ couch forever. Rinoa failed to find a proper reason why, exactly, it was such a bad thing. Sure, they were practically strangers and had nothing in common and Quistis handled all of her needs without so much as asking for a gil, and the whole situation was absurd…

But Quistis was there. Another traumatized, lonely person who needed someone to just be there. No asking, no dredging up the strength to reach out and ask. They simply existed together. And it was enough.

Rinoa recalled Quistis’ gentle touch as she wordlessly stroked her hair until she fell back to sleep last night. Her face suddenly felt hot. Wrenching her hands free, she buried her face in them and groaned. She barely heard Selphie’s giggles above her personal lamenting.

“What’s wrong?” Selphie was not good at concealing her amusement.

“I’m so embarrassed,” Rinoa confessed to her palms. “God… I’m such an idiot.”

“Awww why?” Selphie produced another cosmopolitan, which Rinoa swiftly chugged. 

Fortified by the liquid courage, Rinoa explained, “I had a nightmare last night. It was… bad. Squall. His face disappeared. Like there was a big black hole through his head. That’s all I really remember… But I woke up creeped out and sweaty. I was cold. And too afraid to be alone. I went into Quistis’ room and crawled into bed with her.”

Rinoa still didn’t have the courage to look directly at Selphie but she imagined Selphie to be tilting her head and grinning.

“Yeah? What did she say?”

“Nothing. I mean… She asked if I had a bad dream. I said yes, and that was it. She just… let me cuddle in her bed and didn’t say anything. God I’m so stupid and selfish.”

Quistis must have hated that. The way she withdrew whenever Rinoa invaded her personal space. The insecurities of the flesh she must have after her experiences with Seifer. And here she was, being so inconsiderate, putting Quistis in that awkward position…

“I’m sure she doesn’t mind. She knows what you’ve been through.” Fingernails picked at the crease between her hands, yanking them apart. A pair of inquisitive eyes stared at her, unnervingly amused. “So what did she say this morning?”

“I haven’t spoken to her yet. She’s always gone by the time I wake up.” Selphie thought she was overreacting, but she didn’t know Quistis. How reserved, how quiet she was. How the professor was uncomfortable and awkward with conversation and affection. How difficult it was for her to stand up for herself. 

Selphie snickered. “Yeah you don’t have to tell me how late you sleep in. So, what? She’s an early bird then?”

“Oh yeah. She’s always up and dressed and gone. You know how she always wears glasses and has her hair pulled back?”

“Yeah, that totally square look,” Selphie said. 

Rinoa scowled. Maybe the professor was a square, but the look suited her. “I’ve never seen her hair down. Last night doesn’t count because it was dark and I couldn’t see anything. Only saw her glasses off like, once. She’s the most strict, reserved person I know.”

“Besides Squall?” Selphie asked.

“That’s a toughie,” Rinoa admitted as she contemplated the differences between them. It was also not a fair comparison; between meeting and dating before she moved in, she and Squall had known each other for over a year. “Hard to say, since I haven’t known Quistis for very long.”

“So what do you think of her?” Selphie propped her butt up on the counter. “Is she as stuck up as she seems?”

“Stuck up? No.” Rinoa scoffed at the thought. “She doesn’t think she’s better than anyone else. It’s the opposite. She’s not judgy or assuming or anything like that. She just… feels inadequate and like she always has to earn everyone else’s respect.”

Selphie shrugged. “If you say so. You’ve always been better at reading people than me.”

“That’s right. And you called Squall stuck up when you first met him, remember?” Rinoa playfully stuck her tongue out.

Selphie rolled her eyes. “Okay fine. I won’t say anything else about her until I get to know her better. As long as she’s being good to you.”

“She is,” Rinoa sighed. 

“What do you guys do? You don’t seem to have much in common.”

“Quistis is always busy with work. I have to tear her away from her laptop to watch TV for like an hour. Then I usually fall asleep on her.”

“Like, on her?”

Rinoa blinked. She caught herself before responding too quickly. Selphie’s tone was reminiscent of when she teased Rinoa whenever cute guys flirted with her. “On her shoulder sometimes. Why?”

Selphie shrugged. “Just curious. She doesn’t seem like the cuddly type. But she did let you sleep in her best last night. So I’m probably wrong. Or,” the emphasis was not a good sign, “maybe she likes you.”

Her friend’s eyebrows wiggled comically. What exactly was Selphie insinuating?

“I doubt she’d let me crash at her house if she didn’t like me.” 

“No! I mean _like_ likes you.” 

Rinoa found herself thankful she wasn’t currently taking a sip, because she would have spit it out all over Selphie and the bar. Quistis Trepe, the brilliant, introverted professor who was so infamous and attractive that she had a creepy fanclub that followed her around campus: have a crush on her? A broke, inconsequential bartender? Rinoa hadn’t even gotten to discussing who her father was; not that Quistis was the type to care about lineage or inheritance or any familial things, really. She valued independence. Another reason Selphie’s suggestion was preposterous.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Rinoa chastised with an exaggerated eye roll. 

“If you say so.” Selphie shrugged and glanced at the clock above the pool table. “Well, it’s about time to open. I’ll put you on the schedule for tomorrow. Not gonna lie, I could use a night off.”

Rinoa felt the unspoken words that should have followed her sentence. Selphie was grinning, more lascivious than usual. “To do what?” 

“Do I need to have plans to want a day off?” Selphie asked in a singsong voice that suggested she did have something in mind. 

“No. But you definitely do.” Rinoa slid off the stool to help Selphie with opening chores. She lowered the remaining stools that were still propped up on the counter, while her friend disappeared to the back room. 

When Selphie returned carrying the cash drawer for the register, she was beaming. “Irvy and I have been hanging out.”

“Irvy? You mean Irvine Kinneas? The tall guy who dresses like a cowboy?” 

Selphie’s confirmation came in the form of blushing cheeks and a slight nod. Rinoa crossed her arms over her chest. In the time she had known Selphie, she never had a steady boyfriend. The perky young woman had crushes on just about every person within their age range who came into the bar, but had never pursued anything long term. “He’s so flirty all the time… How do you know if he’s being serious?”

“I plan to find out if he’s being serious… If you know what I mean.” Selphie winked. 

“On that note…” Rinoa turned the open sign on the door. “I’m gonna go get myself another phone. I’ll come work your shift tomorrow.”

“Kay, bye!” 

Rinoa watched Selphie’s smile and wave as she closed the door behind her. Things with her friend and coworker felt normal again. As normal as they could be, anyway.

The quiet side street of Balamb was bleak and dismal as always, featuring a fresh layer of April showers. Grateful that her only pair of footwear were boots, she trudged through the puddles in the sidewalk, mind and feet wandering. Now that she had money, there were at least a dozen things she should go purchase, seeing as how she did not have the stomach for returning to Squall’s apartment. Rinoa was overdue for another phone. A cheap one with a pay card, since she had a habit of short circuiting all of her phones. Then she needed clothes, some food, hygiene products...

RInoa needed to keep her cool. She was trying really, really hard not to trigger another episode of blacking out and potentially hurting anyone. And going back to Squall’s apartment, knowing she could not handle the pain if she went and found the locks changed or all her belongings discarded, was the dumbest thing she could do right now.

Maybe it was hopeless, but she truly believed Quistis could use her brains and connections to find some scientific explanation for it all. Placing her faith in anyone else, not to mention a stranger, was ridiculous. She knew it was. Yet she always assumed the best in others until proven otherwise. 

Like her father. 

Like Squall. 

Rinoa reached inside of her jacket and squeezed the phoenix ring. Squall wouldn’t have kept things from her for no reason… Would he? Why wouldn’t he want her to know his adopted parents? Was he afraid she’d think he hadn’t earned his enrollment and promotion in the military academy if she knew his father was the Headmaster? 

Squall was always kind and caring. Quiet, and a bit withdrawn, sure. LIke Quistis, he had suffered through foster homes and Seifer’s bullying. Granted, he was adopted into a permanent home, but that didn’t mean he didn’t carry around scars. Mentally and physically, as it turned out. So Rinoa chalked his emotionally stunted behavior to that. 

But what if there was more? Some other reason he couldn’t be entirely honest with her? She wanted to believe Selphie was right, that there had to be a good reason. What could be enough to justify the lies? 

Quistis worked with Edea Kramer. Getting her contact information would be easy enough. In fact, Rinoa didn’t have to go through Quistis, she could probably find her in the staff directory on the University’s website. Same with Cid Kramer at Balamb Military Academy. Not that it would get her anywhere. They didn’t know she existed. Why would they believe her when she claimed to be their dead son’s girlfriend? 

Rinoa stared up at the main entrance to Moomba Hall, the wing featuring the offices for Quistis and her peers, as well as the lecture halls. Telling herself she wasn’t being abnormally clingy, and that winding up here instead of the grocery store was some sort of fluke, she walked by Quistis’ office. The door was closed and locked. She continued wandering, listening for the woman she had come to rely on more than anyone. 

All of the lecture hall double doors were open. Voices droned out from each of them. It wasn’t until Rinoa reached the end of the hallway that she finally struck gold. The words were unclear, but there was no doubt she arrived in time to hear one of Quistis’ lectures. Tiptoeing in through the open doorway, Rinoa slid into the first empty seat she found, near the back of the small auditorium. The student sitting beside her cast a curious glance. Rinoa smiled and shrugged before devoting all of her attention to Quistis. 

The prodigy was clearly in her element. Quistis always stood tall and proud, maintaining her professional demeanor even in the comfort of her own home. Added to her stubbornly collected disposition was confidence and passion. She was looking at her smart board, which shrouded the entire wall behind her, using a laser pointer to underline the complicated equation she was explaining.

“Um, excuse me.” Rinoa whispered and tapped the shoulder of the person beside her. “What’s the name of this class?”

Now more annoyed than curious, she glared at Rinoa while brushing her bangs aside. RInoa wondered if she could be a Trepie. “Huh? It’s _Quantum Theory Through Mathematics._ You lost or something?”

“No.” Rinoa smiled and returned her attention to Quistis. 

“Here, Einstein’s theory of general relativity shows that closed timelike curves are possible, meaning that, in theory, you could travel back in time and interact with your past self. This has stumped researchers for years, because of the “grandfather paradox” that we discussed last class.”

Time travel? Rinoa thought Quistis was a statistician, not a quantum theorist. She knew nothing about the lecture topic, but felt her chest swelling with joy at having the privilege to witness one of Instructor Trepe’s lectures.

Rinoa winced. Her ears began ringing. She tried ignoring it, but the sensation grew louder.

Quistis used the hand not holding the laser pointer to change the slide. Jumbled numbers and letters filled the white screen. “Now, thanks to modern research and old-fashioned number crunching, we can see here that this paradox would not necessarily exist, because the timeline would correct itself.”

The equation was a straight line. And then it wasn’t. The formula, while foreign to her, was legible. Until it wasn’t. Numbers blurred and danced as the ringing in her ears intensified, birthing a pounding headache behind her eyes. 

“Not again.” Rinoa closed her eyes and buried her face in her palms. 

Ringing turned to voices. The same seductive whispers promising the fruition of her greatest desires, if only she could understand and obey. 

_Wake from your slumber, Fated Child…_

She yanked on her necklace. Static and heat poured from her palms into the metal, but it was not enough to stop the voices and the visions. Numbers rearranging themselves. They tugged her into multiple directions; past, present, future… separate but united.

The frightful image of her nightmare returned. Squall’s face: hollowed into a vacuuming void. Instead of running from it she succumbed, letting it absorb her, silencing everything.

—-

“Rinoa?”

Why did she have to be awake already? Her eyes were still closed and yet she could already feel the pounding in her head.

“Was my lecture that dull, putting you to sleep?”

Opening one eye revealed a blurry sea of pink. After a disorienting moment she realized it was the fabric of Quistis’ skirt. The professor was sitting on the desk, thighs beside her head with a hand on her shoulder. 

“No, no… Not at all.” Rinoa tried sitting up, but the intense pain pushed her back down. Nestling her head on Quistis’ lap, she closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry. I have a bad headache,” she mumbled.

“It’s okay.” Just like the night before, Quistis silently stroked her hair. Rinoa knew she probably looked childish, but the throbbing pain made it difficult to care. 

“I thought you taught statistics. Not quantum theory stuff.” Speaking was a chore, but she was desperate to occupy her mind with anything else.

“I do. This is Edea Kramer’s field of study. She has been reassigned to other duties and I agreed to teach her classes for the remainder of the semester.”

“Oh.” Edea Kramer. Squall’s adopted mother. Rinoa didn’t know what to think about that. She didn’t want to think at all. Relaxing her head on Quistis’ lap in the empty lecture hall was the only thing she needed. 

She had to stop being selfish. “You have things to do…I know you’re busy. Sorry.”

Quistis continued petting her head. “We can take as long as you need.”

This wasn’t oblivion. But it was the next best thing.


	8. Assimilation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quistis and Rinoa play a certain card game together. Other stuff happens too, I swear.

_Fifty-seven… Fifty-eight… Fifty-nine…_

Quistis clicked through the channels on the television, catching snippets of faces or scenery as she channel surfed. None caught her interest until she came upon a local news channel broadcasting a familiar face and city. 

The haze of city lights struggling to shine through the polluted sky served as a backdrop for the interview taking place. A middle-aged man wearing a crisp, pressed black military ensemble decorated with pins stood tall and rigid with his hands behind his back. He was over a decade older than the last time Quistis remembered seeing his face on the television, but her suspicions were validated when a banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen. 

General Caraway. The leader of Galbadia’s army, who earned himself local fame and became the most respected man on the continent to anyone who remembered his role in the war against Esthar. Quistis was only ten at the time, but every foster family or orphanage she occupied during the war played the news reels nonstop. If they owned a television, anyway. 

After General Caraway put himself at great personal risk by revealing a plot brewing between Deling’s President and the enemy, the war ended rather abruptly. She was far too young and too hungry to care about the details, but she would never forget the faces of the war hero and the disgraced President stamped on every piece of media during that time of her life. 

A dilapidated old television with crooked antennas. Fingerprints and beer stains streaked down the screen and onto the musty carpet. Raised voices contorting the news report as she tried focusing on reading the latest book she borrowed from the library. 

War destroyed families. Looking back, Quistis realized it had little to no effect on her life that she was aware of; likely because she didn’t have a family to begin with. And when you’re already mired in poverty, daily survival is the only war you recognize.

Deep in thought, she did not hear Rinoa entering her apartment until the door slammed behind her. Though Quistis had been expecting her, which was the reason she turned on the television to begin with, her wandering thoughts still allowed her to be startled. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you!” Rinoa dropped her purse on the kitchen counter. The cheer in her expression dwindled as her gaze flickered to the screen. “You’re watching the news?”

One could hardly call it that. General Caraway’s face plunged her into a frigid sea of miserable memories, and she hadn’t heard a word he or the reporter said. “I was browsing. I recognized General Caraway and stopped. I have to confess, I don’t know what they are discussing.”

“My father isn’t one for small talk, so it’s probably a big deal.” Rinoa turned her back to Quistis to pull a drink out of the refrigerator before Quistis had a chance to react to the confession. 

“By ‘father,’ I assume you aren’t referencing the reporter.” 

Rinoa scoffed before taking a swig of water. “No, unfortunately not.”

The resemblance was certainly present. Raven hair, rich brown eyes, and lips of similar shape gave substance to Rinoa’s claim. The young bartender was only missing his square jaw and stern gaze. 

General Caraway, hero of the Esthar-Galbadia War, was Rinoa’s father. 

Quistis crossed her arms over her chest as she asked herself a slew of questions. Why did Rinoa leave the city? Had she changed her last name to avoid strangers guessing their relation? What about her father despised her so? Where was her mother? 

If someone actually had parents, what sort of grievous offenses justified forsaking them? 

Instead of raising these awkward questions that were really none of her business, and she suspected Rinoa had no desire to answer, she turned the television off and set the remote down on the coffee table. Quistis stood on the opposite side of the counter. Unsure of what to say, she directed her attention to the threading on Rinoa’s bag. It was a black leather purse, but the stitches were white and easy enough to count. 

Quistis only reached eighteen when Rinoa broke the silence. 

“I changed my last name to Heartilly. That’s my mother’s last name. I was young when she died. I heard a lot of whispers saying the accident was an inside job… Seditionists trying to silence her and frighten my father away from the truth.” Rinoa sighed. Her elbow thumped against the countertop and she slumped her cheek into her palm. “When I got older I tried learning the truth. But when Caraway found out I was poking around we got into a big fight, and, well… I took the next train out of Deling.” 

“Oh.” 

“After mom died we drifted apart anyway. It’s just that… I dunno… When he acted like he didn’t even want to know the truth, I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. Everyone sees him as this brave war hero. But to me, he’s a coward.”

“I understand.” Quistis didn’t really understand. How could she? She’d never had a conversation with her father, let alone an opportunity to argue over ideals. She did imagine that if someone she loved died of suspicious circumstances, she would do everything in her power to reveal the truth. 

“Anyway. Enough about me. I brought home something fun for us to do before you leave me to go party.”

As Rinoa’s forearm disappeared into her oversized purse, Quistis rolled her eyes. “It’s a convention for work. And I’ll only be gone for three days.”

“You can’t fool me.” Rinoa grinned as she revealed a small box. “The nerds in the robotics and math clubs in high school always had the craziest parties in their hotel rooms.”

Quistis never understood the appeal of parties. Especially in her adolescence, when a ‘party’ was nothing more than an excuse for teenagers to drink cheap vodka and play spin the bottle. Even then, she was conscientious of her situation; lonely and introverted. The unending irony of craving companionship, yet finding basic human interactions dull at best and draining at worst. With her nose always in a book, snubbing away anyone who feigned interest in what she was reading, she earned herself a reputation for being stuck up. Snobbish. 

“I didn’t party,” Quistis half-heartedly corrected as Rinoa led her to the kitchen table. 

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Rinoa didn’t know, but it was the logical assumption. “I figured this would be more your speed.”

Quistis sat into the chair kitty-corner from Rinoa. The small, rectangular box was a box of cards, Quistis realized, as Rinoa removed the stack and began shuffling. 

“That deck doesn’t have fifty two cards,” Quistis skeptically observed. They were vibrant. Flashes of color revealed images that were not suits. “What sort of card game is this?”

“Triple Triad! I’m surprised you haven’t seen your students collecting the cards. I learned it from some customers at the bar. I got a starter pack back when I got my new phone. But I wanted to have a decent deck before showing you. Look.”

Rinoa laid out four cards in a row on the table. Quistis had never seen playing cards like this before. Each featured a different animal, though they were fictional. One featured an insect, another a strange orange fish. There was a large praying mantis, and the fourth card had what she guessed was supposed to be a zombie. Some had symbols, which she assumed were to be elements, because the fish had a stone. The undead monster had three purple bubbles; Quistis had no guess as to what that meant. 

Most interestingly, each card had four numbers. 

“Okay. So. Let’s split the deck so you have cards to work with.” Rinoa gave Quistis half of her cards. “We can add the ‘Open’ rule, which means you can see your opponent’s cards which obviously helps with strategy. The object of the game is to flip as many of your opponent’s cards as possible. There’s a lot of complicated rules for advanced players, but we’ll start simple. Something tells me you’re gonna get the hang of this really quickly.”

As usual, Rinoa was right. The concept was based on rudimentary mathematics, after all, with a smatter of luck, as all cards game went. After playing one round, Rinoa introduced another rule, and then another. Plus, Wall, Elemental, Random… Triple Triad was easy to grasp, addicting in its balanced blend of accessibility and complexity, and, she realized, it was fun. 

Hours passed before they realized it was after nine and they hadn’t stopped to eat dinner. Rinoa scratched the back of her head, laughing as she spread her remaining cards. “Well shit. I only have six cards left. You kicked my ass. Good thing we aren’t playing for real.”

If they weren’t playing ‘for real,’ then what had they been doing? “What do you mean?”

“Well if this was a typical game, you’d get to keep all the cards you won from me. That’s how I beefed up my deck so we could have enough cards for the two of us to play.”

“Oh.” Rinoa spent weeks playing and expanding her collection to surprise Quistis. She treated it as casually as bringing her a coffee when she was working late in the office, but the weight of her deliberate, thoughtful act weighed heavily on Quistis’ chest. “Thank you.”

Rinoa grinned and puffed her chest. “I knew you’d like it.” 

“We should eat something. Then I need to pack.” Quistis pushed herself away from the table. A quick glance at Rinoa before heading to the kitchen told Quistis there was something on her mind. As the weeks passed, she learned many of Rinoa’s cues. Like now, for example: Rinoa was staring out the window, Phoenix ring in her clenched fist. As always, Quistis hated to feel like she had done something to upset her. “What’s wrong?”

“I was thinking that I should probably sleep somewhere else while you’re gone. It wouldn’t be right for me to hang out here while you’re out of town.”

A lump rose in her throat. Why did Rinoa want to leave? Wasn’t she happy?

Their time together—now closing in on the thirty-fifth day—was not only easy, but enjoyable. “Why? I gave you a key so you wouldn’t need me to be here. I mean, I trust you.”

She was desperately rambling. Quistis set her jaw tight to stop herself from saying something stupid.

“Really?” The darkness lifted from her brown eyes, flooded with lackadaisical glee that Quistis much preferred over her brooding. Rinoa’s smile lit up a room, that was impossible to deny. The fact that her smile had the same effect on Quistis’ mood, well… That was also getting difficult to deny.

“Of course. I—“ Quistis swallowed. What she was going to say wouldn’t be appropriate, so she changed course. “I don’t mind.”

She abruptly turned to the refrigerator; examining its contents without truly seeing anything. Rinoa was thankfully silent as she collected her nerves and pulled out the tupperware dish full of leftover chicken alfredo they cooked together the evening prior.

“I have a question,” Rinoa finally broke the silence as Quistis grabbed two glass bowls out of the cupboard.

“What’s that?” Quistis had no idea what to expect. Rinoa’s random lines of questioning were usually benign and random. 

“Are there any foods you don’t like? In the entire time we’ve known each other you haven’t shot down any of my dinner suggestions.”

“I’m not picky.” Quistis shrugged as casually as possible. While she gravitated towards healthful nutrition when she became independent, there was next to nothing she turned her nose at. “You can’t afford to be selective when you don’t know when your next meal is coming. Learned behavior, I suppose.”

“That makes sense. Did that happen a lot? Going hungry, I mean?”

“Often enough.” Quistis didn’t want to talk about her childhood. Bringing it up was stupid. She didn’t know why she did. Rinoa opened up about her parents, which Quistis appreciated, as it helped her to understand Rinoa, but that did not obligate her to do the same. Or did it? 

How was it possible that she had lived for over twenty years and still did not understand basic conversational etiquette? It wasn’t that Rinoa made her feel uncomfortable, the opposite was true most of the time. But her relaxed, nearly codependent attitude towards Rinoa was concerning.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad feelings. I know you don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff.” Rinoa was standing beside her now. She whisked a filled bowl away to place it in the microwave, all the while keeping her eyes firmly planted on Quistis. 

“It’s in the past,” Quistis pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose while avoiding eye contact. “Best not to dwell on it.”

“Speaking of the past…” Rinoa sighed while tapping her fingertips on the microwave handle. Quistis counted the descending seconds remaining on the timer. “I think while you’re gone I’ll finally force myself to go. To my old apartment. My stuff is still there. I hope. If no one’s changed the locks, anyway.”

Quistis’ instincts screamed that this was a bad idea. “Are you sure? What if the memories trigger you? What if you lose yourself again?”

“Well, it’s a risk I’m gonna have to take. I can’t run from the past forever. I’ve made peace with it.”

Quistis frowned. She was not convinced, but she also knew there was no dissuading Rinoa when she had something in her head. And it wasn’t as if Quistis had any control over her. “Fine. At least bring Selphie with you. And call me before you go.”

“My, my.” Rinoa pulled a steaming bowl from the microwave and began stirring it with a fork. The alfredo smelled as heavenly as when it was fresh. Not that Quistis’ mind was on food. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re worried about me.”

Quistis bristled. “Of course I am.” What kind of statement was that? Anyone who had seen what Rinoa was capable of would be. 

“Okay, okay. Don’t get defensive. I care about you too.”

Quistis stared, dumbfounded, as Rinoa slid her steaming dinner across the countertop. That wasn’t what she meant. She wasn’t even trying to insinuate some sort of emotional attachment outside of general concern for Rinoa’s wellbeing. But vocal acknowledgment, by the person she had these feelings for, forced her to confront what Rinoa suspected. 

Quistis did care for her. She cared about what Rinoa might be doing when they weren’t together. She liked—no, wanted—Rinoa to be here with her, so much that the thought of Rinoa moving out made her feel sick. 

And most surprising of all, was how accepting she was of Rinoa’s physical comforts. Every night, the bartender would slide into bed with her. If Rinoa was working, it was after her late shift at the tavern. If Rinoa was home, she dozed off on the couch and snuck into her room sometime in the middle of the night. Quistis never felt repulsed by her warmth, or the curves of her body pressed against hers, or her incoherent mumbling as she slept. 

Quistis didn’t know what any of it meant, except that she didn’t want it to end. 

“Rinoa?” She adjusted her frames again. 

“Yeah?”

They weren’t touching, but Quistis could still feel the anticipation and electricity radiating from her. That was another thing she didn’t mind. Even in the middle of the night, Rinoa’s innate static constantly thrumming against her clothes and skin was unusually soothing. 

“I know you’re worried. About your old apartment. And saving up enough money to get your own place. So. It seems to me, I mean, it would make more sense, and I wouldn’t mind, if you just stayed here.” She was parched. When was the last time she had anything to drink?

Rinoa tilted her head and affixed her with a slight smile. “You mean, like your roommate? Officially?” 

“Yes. Like that.” What else could it mean?

“You sure you won’t get in trouble with your landlord? Expensive condos like this are usually pretty strict about tenants and stuff.”

“If you agree, I will make the call before I leave in the morning.”

“Yeah! Of course!” Rinoa hopped up and down before abruptly stopping. Her face turned serious. “But only if you let me help pay for rent and stuff. I don’t want to feel like a freeloader.”

Quistis expected a different sort of demand, related to having her own bed or more shelf space in the shared bathroom. It hardly felt right to charge Rinoa rent when she didn’t even have her own bed. But that discussion would have to come later.

“Fine,” Quistis agreed, if only because she didn’t want to turn Rinoa off from the idea of living together. Never before had she thought she would enjoy more dirty dishes, clothes strewn about the floor, or someone crashing on her couch… Yet every bit of evidence of Rinoa’s presence brought her a sense of peace.

They migrated to the kitchen table with their meals, eating in relative silence. Quistis’ mind raced with formulas and numbers relative to the quantum theories she was currently teaching. She often second-guessed herself when it came to this field outside of her expertise, and she found mentally reciting the formulas helped with her confidence. As with any other field of study, it took practice and dedication. 

Every so often Quistis would catch Rinoa looking at her. In and of itself, it was not strange. After all, there wasn’t much else to look at in her scarcely decorated apartment. It was the look of wanting to say something, but holding herself back… Which Rinoa didn’t do often.

“What is it?” 

“I was just thinking.” Rinoa put her fork down and leaned back in her chair. Her normally pale cheeks were flushed, and her lips were set firm; not in a frown, but in concentration. “I’m grateful, you know, that you showed up when you did. Right when I needed someone.”

“So am I,” Quistis found herself agreeing. They were both at extremely low points in their lives when they met. It was the catalyst that brought them together, but Quistis wanted to believe there was more than rebounding and desperation keeping them together. 

“You could have just left me there.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Quistis defended herself. Something nagged at her from the back of her mind, insisting her actions that night were more complicated and nuanced than she let on. “You would have done the same for me.”

Rinoa had no quirky retort or joke for that. 

Quistis’ hunger was long gone, but Quistis finished her meal like she always did. No sooner  
had she placed her fork down after eating her last bite, had Rinoa scooped up the empty dishes and scurried off to the sink. 

Since Rinoa was occupied and quiet, Quistis decided it was the best time to pack her suitcase for the short trip. She entered her bedroom and revealed her expansive wardrobe via the sliding door. Protected in zipped plastic garment bags were her suit pants and dresses, all lined on the hangers, organized by color and style. The annual convention was a black tie event, so she selected a black suit and two black dresses, one long sleeved with an ankle-reaching skirt, and the other knee-length with no sleeves. After hanging them on the inside of her bedroom door, she filled her suitcase with undergarments and accessories; one for each day plus an extra in case they became soiled in any way. 

After packing everything that she could for now, Quistis approached her dresser. She always went through her nighttime routine when Rinoa was not around. Removing her makeup, undressing, brushing her hair… All elements of her personal routine she kept for herself. Rinoa was either working or sleeping on the couch when Quistis dressed down before bed. 

It seemed strange, this reluctance to let Rinoa see her without makeup or in her pajamas. After all, she had no problem sharing a bed with her. Outside of work, the two were nearly inseparable. Whether consciously or not, Quistis realized this was the final shred of privacy she was stubbornly clinging to. And while most would probably find it inconsequential or silly, she took her privacy and independence seriously. 

Even more so after letting Seifer desecrate it.

After taking a deep breath, she ensured her bedroom door was closed before stripping and adorning her pajamas. Each button was accounted for, she determined, as her hands made their way down the row. Quistis unclasped the barrette from the back of her head, feeling the weight of her hair crashing against her back. As she reached for her brush, her fingertips grazed Rinoa’s blue brush; its bristles cluttered with fine black hairs. A more thorough investigation revealed Rinoa’s foundation, mascara, lip gloss, and other assorted makeup and hygiene products.

Quistis had turned a blind eye to how Rinoa had invaded her life. As she stood, staring at the proof on display before her, peaceful resignation flooded her. 

Perhaps she wasn’t broken after all. Perhaps it was possible for someone to express interest in her as a person outside of academia. Rinoa cared about her, not her contributions to eruditional pursuits. Rinoa was the only person who invested any time into getting to know her, demonstrated steadfast patience with her introverted and quiet nature, and wasn’t in a hurry to leave the room after taking whatever she wanted from her. 

Nagging doubts still swarmed her mind. People had used her all of her life. Rinoa must be using her. Taking advantage of her kindness to gain somewhere to stay until she could get back on her feet and inevitably leave her alone again. 

A soft knock on the bedroom door distracted Quistis from her self-deprecating thoughts. “Come in.”

“I cleaned the dishes and put everything away. And…” Rinoa began as she let herself into their bedroom. After shutting the door behind herself, their eyes met. For a second, anyway, before Rinoa’s eyes wandered with curiosity. She seemed evenly distracted by Quistis’ hair and her mauve pajamas.

“And?” 

Rinoa’s pink lips curled into a smile. It wasn’t the smile of a liar, or someone who would take advantage of people. Rinoa was the most genuine person Quistis had ever met, making her feel terrible for even thinking she was capable of such negative things. 

“And I’m tired and was thinking of coming to bed, if that’s okay.”

“Of course.” Quistis felt the blood rising in her cheeks. She turned back to her vanity, and with brush in hand, she methodically combed it through her long hair. Rinoa snuck into bed with her every night, but it was always after she was already fast asleep. Every morning Quistis awoke and got ready for her long day hours before Rinoa roused. They never gave voice to their sleeping arrangements; like most things, it was a silent agreement. 

This wasn’t any different, Quistis insisted. Why her heart began racing and her hands began shaking, she couldn’t say. It was annoying and frustrating. Illogical. Rinoa casually began changing into her pajamas. 

“I didn’t realize your hair was so long,” Rinoa commented. “It’s really pretty.” 

“Thank you,” Quistis murmured. Unsure if Rinoa was naked or clothed behind her, she kept her eyes to the assorted makeup products on her vanity. Thanks to Rinoa, everything was unorganized. Desperate for something to occupy her mind, she rearranged everything in record time, lining Rinoa’s things on the left, and mirroring the display with her belongings on the right. Only when she saw Rinoa flinging back the covers on the opposite side of the bed that she’d adopted as her own, did Quistis look up.

Turning the bedroom light off provided a welcome relief from Rinoa’s amused stare. The nightlight plugged into the opposite side of the room made it possible to move around without tripping over Rinoa’s clothes, which were lazily discarded on the floor. But there was still enough darkness to shield her pink cheeks from Rinoa’s attentions.

“So tell me more about this annual convention,” Rinoa said. Quistis sat on the bed, sliding the covers down just far enough to fit her long legs beneath them. She brought the blanket up to her chin. Bundling herself up did not deter Rinoa. The younger woman wasted no time snuggling up against her. 

Quistis swallowed hard before letting herself sink into the mattress and Rinoa’s palpable energy. Their bodies never touched beneath the sheets when both of them were still awake. It was strange. Intimate. A level of familiarity she never experienced before. The only person who had ever been in her bedroom before Rinoa was him. And he never lingered after taking what he wanted from her.

“Are you still awake?” Rinoa whispered and raised her head to see if her eyes were open.

Quistis did not tear her gaze from the ceiling. “Yes, sorry. There are dozens of experts who set up booths, give presentations, do question and answer panels. Experts on everything from calculus to quantum physics to fourth dimensional theory… It really is amazing. Running concurrent to ours is a biological studies assembly, where I am hoping to make some connections and see if we can get some insight into your condition.”

“That would be great.” Rinoa sighed. Hot breath tickled Quistis’ ear. “And it sounds like fun, in that nerdy sort of way. I expect lots of pictures and stuff!”

“Pictures?” Quistis echoed. 

“Yeah, you know. Pictures. You _do_ realize your smart phone takes pictures, right?” 

Quistis rolled her eyes at the gentle teasing. “Yes of course. I just can’t imagine why you would want pictures of something you have no interest in.”

“Why not? It makes you happy. I like it when you’re happy. And I’d really like to not feel like a total idiot whenever you talk to me about it.”

“You aren’t an idiot,” Quistis objected, but Rinoa continued on.

“When you bring up your lectures or show me the assignments you’re grading, I can tell you’re holding back because you don’t wanna accidentally offend me or make me feel stupid.”

Was that true? Quistis hated upsetting her. Perhaps she was subconsciously dumbing herself down whenever she spoke of the subject. “Really? I assume I’m always using my teaching voice. And I don’t mean to talk to you like that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I kind of like it.” Rinoa giggled, “I mean, I like seeing that side of you. You’re a natural.”

“You too. You are an excellent teacher.”

Rinoa scoffed. “It was just a card game. You caught on quickly because you’re super smart.”

Her gut reaction was to argue against Rinoa’s assessment. She wasn’t smart. Far from it. Her life was a long string of bad decisions and terrible communication skills, peppered with some ill-luck. Her seemingly good fortune in being an established professor at such a young age was really the result of diving into her studies to drown out the life she so detested… And it came with its own set of calamities that could have been avoided if she weren’t so… herself.

Fingers cupped around her cheek, pausing only momentarily before moving onto her hair. Static tingled from her scalp down her spine, causing her to shudder.

“Sorry! Did I shock you?”

“No, no.” Quistis hurried to console her. The last thing she wanted was for Rinoa to stop. “Just chills. Nothing bad.”

Rinoa accepted the reassurance and relaxed. She returned to stroking Quistis’ hair, and in turn, it relaxed the uptight professor. “I’m always afraid of hurting people again. Especially you. After everything you’ve done for me, I’d hate to…”

Rinoa gasped and went rigid. The phoenix ring, buried somewhere between their bodies, flashed through the sheets. Quistis turned and fished the ring out from underneath Rinoa’s arm as the young woman remained frozen in a daze. Knowing what always calmed her, Quistis forced the ring into Rinoa’s palm and curled her stiff fingers around it. 

Quistis waited with bated breath until Rinoa finally blinked and sighed. The unnerving distance in Rinoa’s eyes shifted to fear, and then relief when her eyes recognized Quistis and she seemed to remember where she was. 

“Quistis!” Rinoa buried her teary eyes into Quistis’ chest. Once again, Quistis found herself with Rinoa’s head in the crook of her neck, drenching her shirt in tears. 

Quistis didn’t know what to do, outside of comforting her and waiting. Her heart ached for Rinoa. Compiled onto the obvious physical aspects of her condition, there was likely a mental disorder at work that neither of them had worked up the courage to mention. 

“It’s okay. You didn’t hurt anyone.” Quistis knew that would be the first worry on Rinoa’s mind. “You only blacked out for a few seconds.”

Rinoa settled against her, crying, as Quistis silently counted the ticking of her wall clock’s second hand. 

Eight minutes and fourteen seconds later the crying stopped, replaced with slow, labored breaths. 

When Quistis thought she was asleep, one soft word broke the silence. “Quistis?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to miss you… It’s going to be weird here without you.”

“I’ll be home soon,” Quistis promised. “We’ll figure this out.” 

Her chest felt tight. Part of her didn’t want to go. She couldn’t leave Rinoa alone. Not like this. Gut-wrenching uncertainty overcame her, while the illogical part of her that was completely infatuated with Rinoa begged her not to leave. 

They could stay together. Like this. Forever. 

Something told her that if she left, things would never be the same.


	9. Heresy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quistis has an enlightening conversation with Edea Kramer, while Rinoa struggles with her alone time.

The conference center was packed full of booths, demonstrations, and panels of various disciplines. Quistis fidgeted with her name badge clasped to the lanyard around her neck as she wandered the booths. She referenced the pamphlet in her hands while trying not to walk into anyone. The event was crowded to the point where no matter how carefully she walked, Quistis found herself continuously bumping into people. 

When she finally found an empty bench, Quistis sat down and unfolded the brochure. She read the night’s schedule of panels and presentations. Once. Then again. Then a third time. Still, she could not concentrate on the words. 

Quistis sighed. She wished Rinoa was here. Or rather, that she hadn’t left Rinoa alone. What was she thinking? Rinoa needed help. She shouldn’t be alone. Granted, Selphie had promised to spend the day with her before going to work in the late afternoon, but still. It wasn’t enough. Selphie wasn’t enough.

Her fingertips kneaded the bride of her nose, pushing up on her frames. Now she was being ridiculous. 

It was time to focus on why she came. The reason she justified leaving Rinoa. She began scanning once more, paying careful attention to the descriptions of each event. Titles could be misleading; the true meaning behind a field of study was often in the fine print. Edea Kramer’s Time Travel theory presentation was listed. Quistis still had an hour to attend, if she felt inclined. Bitter feelings about Seifer aside, she was teaching Edea’s material and should further educate herself. 

Quistis did a double take when she read a certain professional’s name.

_Doctor Odine._

It couldn’t be. _The_ Doctor Odine?

“...Most widely known for his work on the infamous Lunatic Pandora, a massive containment facility created during the Esthar War, Doctor Odine will be presenting his latest inventions: regulation metals. These metals, while worn on the skin, have the ability to regulate and maintain favorable vitals in the human body…”

Quistis’ mind raced as she dared to hope the infamous Esthar scientist might know a way to temper Rinoa’s sporadic electron imbalance. 

A quick glance at the program told her that his presentation was not until tomorrow morning. A professional shot of his face was next to the blurb. He looked like an eccentric old man, with wiry glasses and a receding hairline. Evidently he was in denial over his hair loss, for the wisp of black hair he had left was tied up in a knot on the top of his head.

She committed his face to memory. If luck was on her side, she might bump into him as she wandered this year’s convention.

This event was usually the highlight of Quistis’ year. When it came to new mathematical discoveries and theories, Quistis was an eager sponge. There was never such a thing as too much advancement or knowledge. The vast potential of the universe, as told through numbers, never ceased to amaze her. 

But she couldn’t summon even a fraction of her usual fascination. Quistis trudged her way towards Edea’s booth. It was the only thing she could think to do, besides retreat to her hotel room and call Rinoa. 

She felt for her cell phone in her pocket, suddenly remembering Rinoa’s request. As soon as she found her seat, she pulled her phone out. After tapping the sparsely-used camera app, she turned the camera on herself. With her free hand she held up her badge.

After snapping a photograph, Quistis studied it. She wasn’t smiling. She looked neutral. Which was more generous than she felt. 

Feeling like she should say something, her thumbs hovered over the letters. She had never been good at small talk. Rinoa probably wasn’t expecting her to say anything, though she felt she should try.

_Miss you._ Quistis texted before sending the message and photograph. 

Before she could return her phone to her purse, it buzzed. She already had a response.

“Miss you too. Why don’t you let your hair down and have some fun?” Quistis read the text out loud. She stared at the text for a long while, oblivious to the smile on her face. 

“Good evening, everyone.”

Edea Kramer’s voice ushered in hushed silence as those around her took their seats. Edea was dressed in her usual attire; a long black dress, with silky hair to match. 

“Time travel. A concept that has baffled scientists and dominated science fiction media for decades.”

Quistis watched as the first slide came alive on the smartboard. She followed along to the half-hour presentation, which was an introduction to Ms. Kramer’s new book that she was selling advanced copies of today. Edea’s theory stated that time compression was already possible, but by means outside the realm of human possibility. She presented many equitable equations, many of which Quistis already knew. 

Quistis had half a mind to ask Edea what she meant by “outside the realm of human possibility.” To ask for clarification meant she would have to pull Edea aside and speak to her alone, which she had little desire to do. 

She tried slinking away in the crowd when the presentation was over, but Edea caught sight of her.

“Quistis! Wait!”

The blonde professor did not hide her dejected sigh. She stood between the rows of chairs as the audience thinned out, waiting for Edea to collect her things and make her way down from the podium.

“Thank you for waiting.” Edea clasped her hands in front of her chest. 

“If this is about Seifer, don’t.” Quistis warned, making it clear she was not in the mood to discuss Edea’s problem child. She thought ignoring Edea’s phone calls and dodging her on campus was more than an obvious enough hint, but here Edea was anyway.

“It’s not. At least, not in the way you’re thinking.” Edea paused. “It’s about Rinoa.”

So Squall’s adopted mother did know Rinoa existed. Quistis was unsure what to make of that. The hesitation in Edea’s voice told her it couldn’t be good. “What about Rinoa?”

Edea shook her head. “We need to go somewhere private. My room?”

Quistis nodded and followed in silence as Edea led her to her hotel room. How much did she know about Rinoa? And what was Seifer’s involvement? Her hands clenched as she imagined him laying a finger on her. He would never get that far, Quistis reasoned. Not with Rinoa’s unexplainable strength.

Maybe that was the problem. Seifer told his parents about Rinoa’s strange powers. How she lifted him straight off the floor. The electricity that flowed from her, temporarily shocking him. The fire that came out of nowhere. How possessed she sounded as she chanted those strange words…

Edea swiped her keycard and let Quistis in. The hotel room was nearly identical to Quistis’. Comfortable, but nothing extraordinary. The only places to sit were the bed or uncomfortable wooden chairs, so Quistis stood in the hallway and crossed her arms.

“What about Rinoa did you want to discuss that must be said in private?”

Edea ensured the door was locked. She jiggled the handle, then flipped the bolt lock. She was acting paranoid. 

Satisfied, Edea retreated to the queen-sized bed. The sheets were flat and crisply folded; Edea clearly hadn’t sat on it until now. Quistis stared, unflinching, as the older woman assessed her. She was being sized up, but she had no idea why. 

Nearly black eyes settled on hers.

“Rinoa is a sorceress.”

Quistis made a noise, something between a snort and a scoff. “What?”

“Rinoa is a sorceress.”

“I heard you. I meant, you’re serious?”

“She has been living with you, yes?”

Quistis frowned. She hated it when people dodged a question by posing one of their own. “Yes.”

“Squall’s ring. Please tell me she wears it.” Edea’s almond-shaped eyes widened, as if in fear.

“Yes. She never takes it off… Why?”

Edea visibly relaxed. She returned to her feet, pacing. Quistis was growing impatient. “What the hell is going on?”

“It is as I said. Rinoa is a sorceress. Squall’s ring helps contain her powers. Without it, she would have given into the voices long ago.”

The voices. How could Edea know about the voices?

“You see… Cid and I have dedicated ourselves to protecting the world from sorceresses. Balamb military academy has an elite, secretive branch of soldiers sworn to neutralize all sorceress threats. With General Caraway and Doctor Odine’s assistance, Cid’s soldiers destroyed Adel of Esthar and put an end to the war.”

“Adel was a sorceress?” Quistis was not entirely on board, but she went along with it. “And you’re saying Rinoa is. What does that mean? How can no one else know of their existence?”

“A woman becomes a sorceress by inheriting the powers. This happens when a dying sorceress finds an unwilling woman, or girl, to pass her powers onto. They can’t die, otherwise. Poor Rinoa was only a child when Adel passed her powers onto her in a cruel, ironic sort of vengeance. Caraway discovered what she was and how she was brainwashing the president of Esthar, so as her final act she turned his daughter into the one thing he despised.”

“Does he know?” Quistis asked, wondering if that was one of the seeds of discord sewn between Rinoa and her father.

“I don’t believe so.” Edea shook her head. “When Cid gets a bead on a potential sorceress, we tell no one. We watch and study the sorceress as covertly as possible. When Rinoa broke things off with her father and moved to Balamb, we acted swiftly.”

Quistis was beginning to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The words formed a nauseating pit in her stomach before she spoke them. “You sent Squall after her.”

“Please don’t misunderstand,” Edea pleaded. “None of us believe a sorceress is inherently evil. We do our absolute best to keep things from escalating. Squall was dispatched to watch over her. And, well, he ended up falling in love with her.”

Did he love her? Or was it an elaborate plot to get close enough to Rinoa so he could kill her if her powers got out of hand? “Rinoa loves him, you know. With all of her heart. From the way I see it, all of you were fucking with her this entire time. Squall did nothing but lie to her. Did he-?” Quistis stopped herself. She wasn’t about to ask a question she didn’t want the answer to. 

“Squall was… He was my pride and joy.” A shadow cast over Edea’s face as she looked at the floor. “Cid and I raised him as our own. He was so introverted and quiet. I never thought he would find love. And when he did, we couldn’t even meet her. He thought it would be easier if we didn’t become close, in case…”

In case they had to kill Rinoa.

Squall was clearly a raw wound for Edea. Quistis had more questions, but thought it would be best to avoid discussing him. She still needed answers about Rinoa. “So Rinoa is a sorceress. What does that mean, exactly?”

“Sorceresses harbor incredible magic. They can harness the elements. Control people’s minds. Bend the very fabric of time and reality in their hands.”

“Like time travel,” Quistis guessed, finding professor Kramer’s obsession with studying time paradoxes and quantum theories. 

“Not just time travel. Time compression.” 

“You spoke a lot about time compression during your presentation. But you said it was not something we could accomplish.” Not that anything made sense right now, but Edea spoke of time compression as a malignant, fearsome concept. 

“Not a normal human, no. But a sorceress can. At least, in theory. Time compression was Sorceress Adel’s ultimate goal. And the sorceress before her, and the sorceress before her. According to my research, time compression would be a state in which time layers on top of itself into one realm that none of us could survive in, save for the sorceress herself. Past, present, future, they would all co-exist while cancelling each other at the same time.”

Rinoa would never do such a thing. 

“You have no guarantee Rinoa would do such a thing.” 

“No, we don’t. As I said, we don’t assume sorceresses are evil. However, there always seems to be a point where they lose their empathy and humanity, and become a magical being with no concern for anything besides their ambitions. Squall constantly championed for Rinoa, saying she was the most kind, wholesome young woman he had ever known. And that she could never hurt anyone.”

It seems Quistis and Squall could agree on one thing, at least. 

“But even he recognized her latent powers trying to emerge,” Edea continued. 

“The ring,” Quistis assumed. Squall would recognize Rinoa’s static energy and other episodes as the sorceress powers trying to emerge. 

“Correct. Surely you’ve seen her struggle, too?” Edea prompted. 

More times than she cared to count. As she came to know Rinoa, Quistis found herself opening to emotions she thought herself incapable of. Yes, Rinoa had shown that she was capable of friendship. But more startling was how she learned empathy. She hadn’t cared or considered how others felt past a superficial degree, but with the young bartender… Quistis felt her emotions. And she cared about them. 

This recent revelation of Rinoa’s silent struggle emotionally crippled Quistis in a way she’d never felt before. Rinoa never asked for any of this. Rinoa deserved more than a covert operative posing as a boyfriend. She deserved true friendships and relationships. Someone looking out for her and protecting her because they wanted to. Not because they were paid to. 

Instead of overtly answering, Quistis pulled Edea’s strategy on her. “What can I do to help?”

“I have a meeting with Doctor Odine tomorrow morning. He’s developed a more advanced bracelet that he believes will absorb the magic much more effectively than the ring Squall gave her.”

A headache did not begin to explain the pounding behind Quistis’ eyes. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and leaned against the wall. 

Rinoa was an oblivious sorceress capable of distorting and controlling the very fabric of space and time. 

Was this really happening? 

“About Seifer…”

“No more. I need to go to sleep,” Quistis argued. She couldn’t take much more of this. Perhaps if she went to bed, she would awaken and this bizarre dream would be over. She felt herself shutting down.

“Seifer stole all of my research from my office. Now he knows everything. And I’m afraid of what he might do.”

Nothing made sense. Quistis had a thousand more questions. But no matter how much more knowledge she gained, it didn’t change the one thing she did know.

She needed to go home to Rinoa. Now.

\-----

_Fithos..._

Loud and persistent they came. The drums of war. Sharp staccato beats.

_Lusec..._

She buried her head beneath Quistis’ pillow. No matter how hard she squeezed, the pounding between her ears would not stop.

_Wecos..._

Pathetic. Quistis had become her crutch. Without her here, she was pathetic and alone.

_Vinosec..._

She couldn’t suppress it anymore. Overwhelming static and confusion and anger felt ready to explode. The phoenix dangling from her chain throbbed and lit up the darkness beneath the pillow as Rinoa tried smothering the voices to no avail.

Perhaps she should just smother herself. Put an end to her misery. An end to inconveniencing Quistis and Selphie. An end to pining over the dead man who lied and hid things from her. End her shameful pining over Quistis.

Her behavior truly was disgusting.

They were supposed to be friends. Rinoa wasn’t looking for someone to replace Squall. Quistis was afraid of intimacy; likely traumatized, though she would never speak of it or admit to it. 

Why, then, did her body and mind insist on betraying her? Why couldn’t she stop fantasizing about kissing Quistis’ lips last night? Why did she need to be absorbed by her warmth? She couldn’t be close enough.

Rinoa couldn’t sleep without her. She couldn’t eat without her. 

And now she couldn’t keep the voices at bay without her.

_Veni hortum veritatis…_

“Stop!” Rinoa buried herself between the sheets, sinking as far into the mattress as she could. Forcing her eyelids closed did no good, for the visions were as loud and demanding as the voices. The stuff of her nightmares. The void where Squall’s face should be. An empty husk of the man she loved. 

Had he loved her? He betrayed her trust. Without living long enough to explain himself. She hated herself for loving him still. She wanted his soft hair tickling her face. His warmth comforting her. His hands as they caressed her skin. His striking blue eyes as they stared into hers before bowing his head between her thighs. 

Rinoa shuddered. Her mind traversed all the same fantasies with Quistis the night before. It was the first time she’d entertained such thoughts. For never existing before, they were unbearably persistent now. 

Then she cried. 

She was despicable. Desperate. The man she loved had not been gone two months, and she was already yearning for the touch of another. A rebound. Was she so insecure, that she clung to the first person who treated her with compassion? 

Her heart pounded in quick succession, catching her breath. 

Maybe this was it. Maybe whatever force that was fucking her up would finally claim her by stopping her heart, leaving her dead body for Quistis to find when she returned from her trip. 

The surge had the opposite effect. Her body became alive. The voices in her mind became alluring. Electricity charged every cell, every drop of blood, every nerve ending she had been numb to for weeks. The sudden throbbing between her legs became unbearable. Like an animal in heat, she mounted Quistis’ pillow and began grinding against it with reckless abandon. 

She could feel him inside of her. Thrusting. Strong hands guiding her hips on top of him. She loved him. She hated him. And she would fuck him with the passion of both. Even in death, all of his passions belonged to her. 

It was what the voices promised. The power they gave her. She could have everything she ever wanted. 

The past. Squall. 

The present. Quistis. 

A whimper as the gentle, calming side of her powers washed over her perceived reality. 

Yes. Rinoa could have her too. 

She could have everything she ever wanted. A hand slid inside of her panties. She stroked gently. Carefully. She couldn’t scare her away. After fucking Squall raw with her pent up aggression, she could teach Quistis how to make love. 

Soft caresses. Fingers everywhere, as slow or as fast as Quistis wanted. Rinoa could have her begging.

Just. Like. This. 

There was no one to hear. And yet she buried her face in Quistis’ pillow as she screamed. It hit her fast and hard. 

_Valete liberi…_

Rinoa’s parallel fantasies folded in on each other, compressing into one reality of orgasmic highs. The phoenix seared hot, branding her chest as she came.

Compression.

A mutual sense of understanding flowed between Rinoa and the entity inside of her. Just as she grasped it, it slipped away, fading in the throes of her self-gratification. The fleeting sense of bliss helped her forget her grief and shame as she smothered Quistis’ pillow with her body and sweat, wishing it was the actual professor beneath her. 

Before Rinoa could catch her breath and begin to feel repulsed with herself, her cell phone rattling on the bedside counter startled her. She groaned and used her clean hand to reach over and look at the small display. 

One AM. 

Rinoa didn’t recognize the number. Anticipation churned her stomach. She moved her thumb to decline the call, yet the force inside of her, the same one that hurt those men in white, destroyed the tavern, and lifted Rival off the ground, forced her to answer the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Meet me at Squall’s apartment.”

Rinoa sat up in bed. 

That voice. 

“How did you get my number?”

“You’ve got thirty minutes.”

The line went dead. Rinoa dropped the phone into her lap and buried her face in her hands. 

“Fuck.”


	10. Silence and Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rinoa's true powers are unleashed.

Incessant burning. 

She didn’t need this. This symbol of a bygone era. It was hurting her. Suppressing her. 

She tore the necklace off and dropped it onto the bed. It’s phosphorescent light blipped away, giving the illusion it was an ordinary silver ring. The burn marks on her chest said otherwise.

A haze overcame the pain and her vision as the power, blocked from penetrating her deepest self until now, assumed complete control.

What had Squall given her?

What had she done?

No matter. It was finally time.

Time to become her true self. Time to seize control by harnessing her latent abilities and taking what was owed to her. Everything she wanted. 

No, everything she deserved.

And she would begin with Rival.

Revenge guided her. A blur of yellow and green swirls preceded his ugly face. Squall’s legacy; a diagonal scar dividing Rival’s ugly face, beckoned her to the present.

Rinoa was outside of the apartment she shared with Squall, having no recollection of walking there. 

She was too far gone to question it. Or to feel fear. She was fueled by the magic within her; a manifestation of desire. Desire for vengeance. Desire to have anyone and everything she ever wanted, inside of her own private creation.

He was on his knees, looking up at her expectantly. 

“Tell me why I should not kill you on sight,” she threatened. The voice was deep and seductive. It was not hers. At least, not before now.

“Information.” His head lowered. “I now know what you are. And all I want is to serve you.”

Her hand extended, forming a chokehold. Despite only holding air, her will lifted Seifer’s body from the ground as if she were grabbing him. He was suspended in midair, feet dangling.

The temptation to crush his throat nearly won out. But if he was being truthful, her revenge could wait a few more minutes.

“Then pray to your god that you can maintain your usefulness.” With a swipe, her magical hold on him relinquished. She tossed him against the door, causing him to crumple over. “Now show me.”

Without a word, he returned to his feet and unlocked the door. She floated past him, stopping as she entered the room. 

Memories came unbidden, desperately clawing at her newfound persona. It was impenetrable without the phoenix ring holding her back. 

“Here.” He presented her with a laptop. Reading felt so… strange. Beneath her. When ancient secrets of the universe were hers to pluck from the air, black and white letters felt trivial.

“Squall wanted to suppress you from your true nature. He was a coward. Afraid of your awesome power. But not me. You need to flourish. Dominate those who cannot fathom your incredible magic.”

Rival was a selfish man. He stood to gain something from encouraging her, of that there was no question. She didn’t ask. She couldn’t care less of his wants or desires. Nor did she want his words to influence her decision one way or the other.

And so, with the electronic device floating before her, she read. 

And read.

And read until exhausting everything available to her. Years of Edea Kramer’s research, notes, and collections of newspaper articles and photographs. She was inundated with information, formulas, and theories. Names of sorceresses of the past. Current sorceresses. 

Rinoa’s name was there. And so was another she recognized; one whose identity came as a surprise.

There were pictures. Rinoa leaving Quistis’ apartment complex. And work. And Balamb University. Some were zoomed in on her necklace. It was obvious they wanted her to wear it. 

All the more reason to rid herself of that crutch.

Notes about every phone call and email Edea sent to Quistis. The answered and unanswered calls. Quistis kept it professional—if there was contact between herself and Edea, she refused to comment on anything not related to her employment. 

The opportunistic bully beside her could be thanked for that, Rinoa assumed.

Another photograph. This one gave her pause. The haze clouding her vision pulsed to the erratic rhythm of her heart. Two figures dressed in white suits with large brown shoulder pads lay sprawled on the floor, covered in blood. 

This floor.

Ears ringing and head pounding, the memory returned to her. Two men claiming to be comrades of Squall’s. They had his death certificate. They were looking for her, or rather, a family member to pass it onto.

But that was a lie.

They wanted to confiscate her. She remembered the shackles. How one of them restrained her while the other tried handcuffing her with glowing restraints, which looked much like her phoenix ring whenever it was triggered. 

She cried. She screamed. 

And just before one of them was able to contain her, the building magic inside of her burst. 

According to the notes, they were found in critical condition. Neither of them died, somehow, despite the copious volume of blood. 

Rinoa felt no relief to learn she hadn’t killed them. Only disdain.

With all the information at her fingertips, there was nothing explaining Squall’s death. Only a file with the time and date. 

Their precious secrets were on borrowed time. 

Secrets and time; both of which would soon belong to her.

She waved her hand, sending the laptop hurtling across the room. She turned towards Seifer, who immediately bowed. 

In Edea’s research, it was noted that every known sorceress had a protector, given the title of “Knight.” A Knight was a man dedicated to her cause, charged with enacting his sorceress’ will. 

Rinoa’s will would ultimately snuff Seifer out of existence. 

But for now… She could find one more use for him.

“It is time,” Rinoa began as she floated above him. “Past, present, future… They shall belong to me. Do not allow anyone to disturb me. If you succeed in your task, perhaps I will let you live a fantasy beyond your imagination in my new world.”

“Yes, Sorceress.” 

He was more talented at feigning humility than she would have given him credit for.

Edea’s formulas imprinted themselves across her vision. Translating them took no effort. It was as if a switch went off in her brain, awakening her to information that was always there. 

“Time shall compress.”

—

“Rinoa?” Quistis rushed into her apartment. “Rinoa!”

No answer. The only sound she heard was the ticking of her wall clock. Quistis flicked on the lights. There was no sign of Rinoa in the living room or kitchen. There were no boots on the floor mat beside the door. 

Panicking, Quistis rushed to her bedroom. Maybe Rinoa was still sleeping. Maybe she had taken her boots off by the bed, in a small act of rebellion because Quistis wasn’t home to relocate them to their appropriate spot beside the door. 

“Rinoa?”

Quistis flicked the light switch and entered their bedroom. The bedsheets were tousled. Her pillow was moved from just below the headboard to the middle of the bed. Sitting dead center in her pillow was Rinoa’s necklace. While she did not fully trust Edea, Quistis believed her when it came to the grave importance of Rinoa wearing that piece of jewelry. She had witnessed it with her own eyes enough times.

Lifting the ring, she noticed the chain was broken. It slipped out of the ring hole, coiling like a snake on her pillow. For lack of a safer place to put it, she slid the ring onto her finger. 

Fishing her cell phone out of her pocket, Quistis called the only other person Rinoa would voluntarily be with.

“Quistis? Whats up?” Selphie sounded awake and distracted, likely because she was closing up at the tavern.

“Is Rinoa with you?”

“No. We hung out until I had to come to work around five. Then she said she wanted to be alone so she went back to your place.” There was a notable pause in Selphie’s flippant speech. “Uh, why’re you asking?”

“I need to find her now. And if she’s not with you…” 

“Then she’s gotta be at the apartment,” Selphie finished. “I’m almost done here, do you need a ride?”

Quistis’ mind raced. Rinoa took her ring off. It was likely the only thing keeping her sane. The damage Rinoa was capable of with it on was significant; she hated to imagine the destruction Rinoa could forge without it. Inviting Selphie to come along was not safe or smart. But Quistis had no choice, as she didn’t know where the apartment was located. 

“Okay. I’m coming to the tavern right now.” Quistis ended the call. She shoved her phone back in her suit pants pocket, and almost left without grabbing her keys. 

Quistis couldn’t get to Angelo’s Tavern fast enough. It was growing increasingly difficult to keep her thoughts from turning morbid. Without Squall’s ring containing her tumultuous powers, Rinoa might do something there was no turning back from.

Especially if Seifer was instigating her. 

Why was Seifer meddling? The last time he saw Rinoa, he ran away with his tail between his legs. If everything Edea said were true, the only possible reason he could be involved was for his own self gain. And, while Quistis certainly wouldn’t shed any tears if Rinoa hurt him, she would do whatever she could to help preserve Rinoa’s innocence.

Upon parking on the side of the road in front of the bar, Quistis recognized the one car parked in front of hers. Irvine was here. While it came as no surprise, she found herself annoyed. He would insist on coming along to help as well. 

Two college-aged young women were smoking outside the entrance. When Quistis shut her car door they scampered off. Before she could test the handle to see if the tavern was already closed, the door opened. 

“Hey Quisty! One sec, I gotta lock up.”

Irvine sauntered out from behind her. “Evening.” He tipped his hat towards her. 

“We need to go now,” Quistis insisted. Selphie turned the key in the lock at a painfully slow pace. 

“What's wrong?” Selphie tilted her head. “Is Rinoa in trouble?”

Outside of what Selphie had personally witnessed, Quistis was unsure how much she knew. The professor never thought to ask Rinoa about her private conversations with Selphie. It was none of her business, she reasoned. 

“We just need to hurry.”

To their credit, neither of them questioned her any further. They trusted her, despite barely knowing her.

“Well in that case…” Irvine reached into the deep pocket of his trench coat. After retrieving the keys he tossed them to Selphie. “Here babe.”

“Woohoo!” Selphie cheered and unlocked the doors. Annoyed that she was treating this as some sort of fun, late-night outing, Quistis frowned and slid into the backseat.

“Selphie’s got a lead foot. She’ll get us there in no time.” Irvine’s weak attempt at reassuring Quistis had little effect. “So you’d better buckle up.”

Quistis hadn’t realized she forgot to buckle her seatbelt. Shaking her head, she snapped it in place as Selphie pulled away from the curb.

Irvine wasn’t kidding. Selphie was a fast driver. Quistis always stuck to the exact speed limit, making it easy to tell from the beginning that Selphie paid no mind to it. Irvine drove a red all-wheel drive truck, which Quistis never would have thought could accelerate so quickly.

She memorized the route. Traffic was light at this time of early morning. Street lights whizzed by, sneaking in through the windows as Selphie raced to a relatively remote apartment complex Quistis was unfamiliar with.

“Their apartment is on the third floor,” Selphie said as she parked Irvine’s vehicle. 

Quistis hardly heard her as she exited the car. She studied the apartment complex, craning her head to see the top floor. They were in the parking lot located behind the building. There was a rusty red door beneath a narrow awning. It appeared to be the quickest option, provided it wasn’t locked.

“Whoa, hold your horses.” Irvine grabbed a bunch of fabric from the back of her jacket, forcing Quistis to stop. “Is Rinoa in danger or somethin?”

“Yeah! What’s so urgent we had to rush over here at three AM?” Selphie loudly chirped.

Quistis sighed. There was little time to go into detail. They helped her without hesitation; she owed them at least some information. “I’ve reason to believe Seifer is with Rinoa. Without her ring, she’s unstable… I’m afraid of what she might do.” 

Quistis held up her hand with the phoenix ring. Selphie recognized it immediately. “She never takes that necklace off.”

“Well she did.” Which told Quistis that Rinoa was struggling with her demons long before she removed it. The voices, which Quistis heard pouring from Rinoa’s mouth enough times to know her powers constantly haunted her, must have become unbearable. “You remember what she did to the tavern when she found out Squall died? This could be much worse.”

“In that case, I’m taking point.” Irvine pushed past Selphie and Quistis. “At least until we can assess the situation.”

Quistis hadn’t thought Slephie capable of being serious before now. The bubbly bartender nodded. “Okay. But I’m expecting a lot of explaining from you when this is all over.”

Was she even at liberty to say? Edea hadn’t specifically stated the information was confidential, but Quistis knew it was to be assumed. Edea and her family hadn’t run these covert operations for years to expose themselves over this.

Quistis just nodded. Anything to get them moving. As she turned towards the building, a bright light burst out of a third story window.

“There!”

The trio ran. Irvine easily pulled the entrance open and darted inside. Quistis struggled to keep up with him, as did Selphie behind her. Each step felt like a monumental hurdle between her and Rinoa. Quistis berated herself every step of the way. 

She never should have left. She should have stayed here. She should have stayed with Rinoa. She shouldn’t have been so distant. She should have done more.

“Well look who it is.” 

Quistis startled when they discovered Seifer standing outside a closed apartment door. Irvine extended his arm out before her in a protective gesture.

Seifer crossed his arms over his chest. His snide, cocky grin made her stomach turn.

“No one invited you to the party. Or your new friends,” he continued. 

Selphie ran into Quistis’ back, causing them to lurch forward. 

“Where is Rinoa?” Quistis pressed. Seifer strolled towards them, not intimidated by Irvine’s height or Quistis’ persistence.

“She is no longer your concern. I’m the sorceress’ Knight. She demands that she not be disturbed. So get lost.” Seifer regaled Quistis with a lusty, hungry gaze she wished she had forgotten. “Unless you missed me that much? Ditch your friends and we can get a good fuck in, for old time’s sake.”

Seifer was just trying to get to her. Shatter her defenses and resolve. It worked.

“Hey now, that ain’t no way to talk to a lady!” Irvine, thankfully tall with a billowing coat, blocked Seifer from Quistis’ line of sight. “I’m only gonna ask once. Where’s Ms. Heartilly?”

“And I’m only going to tell you one more time.” Quistis heard Seifer’s slow footsteps. “Fuck. Off.” 

After a prolonged stare down, Irvine broke the silence. He turned to Quistis and Selphie and winked. “Well, you heard the man. Guess we gotta skedaddle.” 

Selphie turned as if to descend the staircase they just climbed. Irvine tipped his hat to Quistis again, smiling as his head bowed low. He took one step towards the staircase before snapping back and landing a punch square against Seifer’s jaw. 

Quistis backed up against the wall in anticipation of Seifer’s retaliation. Rival returned the gesture with just as much force. Irvine crossed his arms for protection, but the impact of the blow caused him to stagger backwards.

“Get him, Irvy!” Selphie cheered from the stairwell. 

As Irvine ducked and charged for Seifer, Quistis snapped to action. She jiggled the doorknob to the apartment Seifer was guarding. It was locked. She banged as hard as she could on the wooden door.

“Rinoa! Rinoa, it’s me! Please let me in.”

Nothing.

Quistis pressed her ear against the door. Distorted, faint chanting could be heard on the other side. It was the same voice that took over when Rinoa almost hurt Seifer in her office. Now she knew, without a doubt, Rinoa was in there. Or what was left of her, anyway.

“Rinoa! I need to talk to you! I—” Quistis jumped as Irvine crashed into the wall beside her. 

She was violently yanked backwards by the collar of her shirt. Seifer’s sour breath and bloody lip spiked her anxiety, which was only made worse by the fingers clenching around her throat. 

“The sorceress said no interruptions. Not even for you, you fucking pathetic sap!”

Seifer stared down at her, hands clenching around her neck. Her brain instantly reverted to those moments. Seifer trapping her beneath him. Dominating her in all the wrong ways. 

Shame and disgust seized her limbs and constricted her lungs.

“Leave her alone!” 

Quistis couldn’t see anything. Seifer’s hold released as he collapsed before her. She struggled to catch her breath. It took a moment before she remembered where she was. 

Selphie was standing behind Seifer, poised to shove her boot up his ass. She smiled at Quistis and pointed at the door. “Hurry up!”

What could she do? It was locked. And if Rinoa could hear her pleas, she gave no sign.

Still, Quistis knew she had to try.

She pounded her fist against the door. Her hand was sore and raw, but she didn’t know what else to do. 

“Rinoa, please! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. Can we please talk?”

Her desperation yielded results. A small click. Quistis blinked, realizing the door had been unlocked.

Rinoa was letting her in.

Swallowing her nerves, Quistis turned the handle. She needed to hurry; Seifer and Irvine’s brawl was getting too loud. Two overgrown men tumbling down the staircase would rouse the neighbors. Someone was bound to call the police. 

Opening the door revealed a startling sight she was not prepared for.

A swirling vortex of air and inky streaks circled a winged woman, hovering in the center of what must have been a living room at some point. Perpetual motion, almost like a concentrated tornado, caused debris to circle around the room. Quistis’ hair and clothing violently flapped in the outskirts of the anomaly, hard enough for her barrette to be torn from her head.

Despite all the motion, eerie silence filled the room, almost as if the thing was absorbing all sound. Quistis stopped just inside of the doorway, staring at the woman who was, and wasn’t, Rinoa Heartilly.

The deep brown eyes Quistis sought out were gone, replaced by menacing, yellow-green, almost feline eyes. Purple swirls, almost like paint, decorated Rinoa’s pale face. Black wings flapped slowly and menacingly as Rinoa stared down at her through the orb of chaos cocooning her.

Silence and motion.

Quistis did not know sorceresses existed before today, yet she firmly believed that Rinoa was one. And if Rinoa was compressing time as Edea feared, there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Come.” It was not Rinoa’s voice, but the word was spoken by her mouth nonetheless. “Enter my new world and live a fantasy beyond your greatest imagining.”

Whatever Rinoa was doing, it was growing. The sphere bulged closer to where she stood, threatening to engulf her. 

Was this truly Rinoa’s plan? To absorb the entire world in time compression?

Quistis swallowed hard. She insisted she wanted to speak to Rinoa, but facing such unfathomable power left her speechless. Rinoa had inherited a great and terrible power. 

And Quistis was powerless to stop her.

What would happen to her body if she entered Rinoa’s “new world,” where time eternally collapsed upon itself. Would it destroy her physical form? Could her consciousness even survive? If Rinoa was inviting her, perhaps it meant the mighty sorceress would allow her to live.

The awful realization that she would be absorbed into Rinoa’s new reality, whether by choice or not, made her decision only marginally easier.

For the first time in a long time, Quistis took a chance.

Holding her arms crossed before her face, Quistis stepped past the rushing barrier. As her physical surroundings waned and bowed, her distorted hand began to burn. 

A pair of fiery wings sprouted from the phoenix, shrouding her as she plunged into the time vortex.


	11. Succession of Witches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quistis dives into Rinoa's magical new world, desperate to save the sorceress from herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added the Rape/Non-con tag to this fic. While the references herein are not overtly explicit, I feel the tag is warranted. The rating has also jumped from T to M.

Countless sounds and visions bombarded her senses. Scenes and memories pulled her in a thousand different directions. If it weren’t for the phoenix wings cocooning her, she was certain her consciousness would have been torn to shreds. 

Worse than the sensory overload was the emotional one. Despondence and sadness and anger and anxiety stacked on top of one another like a treacherous house of cards, threatening to topple at any given second. She was young, then old. An adolescent running away from yet another foster home. A professor standing at the front of a lecture hall while Seifer watched with his arms crossed against the door. 

This was not a fantasy. It was torture. An absolute nightmare.

An infant screaming. Rinoa’s laughter that she might never hear again. Trepies whispering. Seifer grunting as he spends himself inside of her. 

Her silent scream as she lets it happen. Again and again.

Her shame plays on repeat as she walks out of the pharmacy night after night, shoving the Plan B into her purse, pretending not to hear the judgmental whispers around her. The memory repeats itself ad nauseum. 

A voice interrupts her personal purgatory, bringing her to another point in time she had long forgotten. A lonely child, standing beside a dirty recliner. Inside of her fiery shell, she could not make out the man sitting with his back to her. She only saw the little girl, nervously fidgeting with her fingers.

“Bored? Bored!?” 

The blonde child flinched when he raised his voice. Even at such a tender age, she was forlorn and miserable.

“Here, now fuck off!”

A textbook to shut her up. She remembered the cover so vividly now; faded edges, pale green and ombre font, and a title emblazoned across the front. 

Introduction to Arithmetic.

Snippets of her miserable life sliced through her, pummeling away at her sense of self, her very existence, her mind, until there was nothing left but a shred of… Whatever she was now. 

“You want to keep your job, don’t you?” 

Seifer’s voice grated through the darkness. If she could find her ears or hands she would have tried blocking out the noise. If she could cry, she would have let the tears fall. If she could gouge out her eyes to keep from watching these same scenes of degradation and agony play on repeat, she would. 

But it was all in her mind. And even the sheltering presence of the phoenix ring could not fully conceal her from every ounce of pain and rejection she was subconsciously obsessing over.

Her teenage self, curled into a fetal position on the ground, trying to ignore the pangs of hunger stabbing her stomach.

Her adult self, bent over the bed with her face buried into a pillow, shaking her head to no avail. 

Here she was again, sitting at the bar, staring into an empty glass, waiting for Rinoa to return and ask her if she wanted a refill.

Rinoa…

The shell around her pulsated, as if reading her mind. If she could concentrate on Rinoa, or rather, some simple, easy to recall image or sound, maybe she could ground herself within this madness.

Almost unbidden, the answer came to her in a series of dizzying flashbacks. 

Rinoa’s smile as they played Triple Triad. Smiling while listening to her lecture. While cooking dinner. While walking to the car. While talking about everything and nothing. So many memories and so many calming moments. All Quistis wanted—all she searched for—was Rinoa’s beautiful smile.

Countless clips played before her and around her. She would have felt nauseous, if she could feel her physical body. But above all came an unsettling sense of euphoria; Quistis knew it was artificial and strange. But even more than that, it was addicting.

If happiness existed, Quistis was certain she felt it now, while saturated in memories of Rinoa.

The smile she adored came at her again, coated with whipped cream. Quistis lingered in the memory a split second longer, watching with curiosity. She and Rinoa were walking side by side, each with a coffee cup in hand. Their surroundings were unknown to her. Rinoa dipped a finger into the cloud of whipped cream on top of her drink and dabbed it on the tip of her nose. 

This memory was strange to her. It never happened. At least, not yet. Which meant…

“Here. Let me get that.” 

She was in the future. Or maybe a possible future. 

Fixated on the scene, she watched as some version of Rinoa got up on her tiptoes and licked it off. Then Quistis watched herself do the unthinkable. 

She leaned down and kissed Rinoa on the lips.

The scene faded to black, leaving Quistis with an emotion she could not entirely label. Yearning, confusion, and arousal, all bundled into an unusual essence seeping through her protective shell. 

Was that scene real, or was it just a fantasy?

As if to answer her, another scene played out before her. Rinoa’s smile, yet again, but different this time. Rinoa’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes narrow and glossy. Her hair, messy. Her body… naked.

Both of them were naked. Cuddling beside each other in bed. Quistis thought she would be mortified or disgusted, but she wasn’t. 

She was… relieved. 

If this was the future, or a possibility, then hope was not all lost. 

She could be fixed. Rinoa could be fixed. They could both be healed. And happy. 

“Quistis?”

Rinoa’s glazed eyes turned away from the naked Quistis in the future. She stared directly at Quistis in her current form, startling her. The voice was that of the Rinoa she knew, not the sorceress, and it bestowed a sense of clarity to her jumbled thoughts. 

It was time for another leap of faith.

\----

She was the master of her new universe. As her physical body worked to expand her influence even further, her consciousness traversed every moment in time. Whatever she wanted was hers. While her ultimate goal was to spend eternity within her dreamscape composed of only those moments she desired, there were certain things she needed to know.

Thus, she brought herself here. The turning point. 

Bloodied and battered inside of a contorted metal cage. Unconscious. Raven strands sticking to her forehead. 

Rinoa was more interested in the crumpled woman beside her in the limo’s backseat. She wore the wine colored dress she always performed in. Her legs were crushed beneath a ton of metal. 

Her mother, Julia Heartilly. And she was alive.

What remained of the door on young Rinoa’s side of the limousine blew away, revealing a rather frightening woman. Pale skin, decorated in painted markings beneath the blood coating them. Rinoa recognized this person instantly. And more importantly, she recognized her for _what_ she was. 

Adel. Sorceress Adel. What little Rinoa knew of the war that consumed her father’s life at this point in her life made much more sense, now that she knew the truth. Adel’s glowing eyes feasted upon her unconscious body with ravenous hunger. 

Rinoa already guessed what was to come. No matter how sick she felt, she remained cemented in this previously inaccessible moment of the past.

“Y-You’re Adel,” Julia stuttered. She was in a haze, half-dead and likely unsure of where she was.

The sorceress paid her no attention. Adel’s hand reached out from beneath a tattered cloak. She didn’t have hands at all. There was a lavender claw with unnaturally long talons, reaching out and yanking unconscious Rinoa from her seat.

“No! Please, no!” Her mother’s cries of desperation punctured her veneer of callousness. As divorced from her sensibilities as succumbing to the darkness made her, Rinoa could not ignore her mother’s pain. Despite being trapped within steel, Julia strained, reaching for her daughter. Ugly sobs. Makeup streaked down her face. 

The image was a far cry from her mother sitting at the piano, smiling and singing. Rinoa almost regretted ruining that lasting picture. 

“Caraway… Thought he would be rid of sorceresses… Yet we never truly die… We merely pass from one vessel to the next…”

This was revenge for Adel. Caraway ended her bid for world domination by defeating Esthar in the war. From what Rinoa could see now, he must have had a hand in her death as well. With her dying breath, she teleported across the world to imbibe his helpless, unconscious daughter with her legacy. Passing the magic he so loathed onto his only daughter.

This moment was when her curse began.

“Leave her alone!” Julia screamed. Her begging was drowned out by a sudden outburst of light and noise. Rinoa hung from Adel’s oversized hands like a ragdoll. She was unresponsive. The explosion blew everything away. The car became shrapnel, and her mother’s body was completely eviscerated. 

Nothing but debris and her unconscious body. Lights flared in the distance. Time meant little in her compression, allowing her to stay in this frozen moment of time as long as she could bear it. 

Her mother was alive until the sorceress transferred all of her magic and knowledge into Rinoa. Was this why her father refused to speak of the accident? Had he investigated and discovered the truth? Did he know his only daughter was a sorceress? Did he know Rinoa was the successor to unfathomable powers over time and space, which he had worked so hard to eradicate? 

It mattered not. Not anymore. Her father was a blip in her memory that she was keen to ignore for the rest of eternity. 

Now that she had satisfied her curiosity for the truth regarding her mother’s death and her sorceress beginnings, Rinoa moved onto the true reason she compressed time. 

Squall’s arms around her waist. Men’s cologne and the faintest traces of sweat from lovemaking. The post-orgasmic high she craved.

Rinoa’s body was still on top of his. Her fingers splayed across his chiseled chest. Her muscles throbbed as her body welcomed his release. Haggard breaths and slick skin. Squall’s piercing blue eyes always stared into hers as he came. Rinoa had dreamed of this face since he left her. 

This was a memory she could lose herself in forever. 

Or so she thought.

But the longer she remained frozen in this moment, the more disappointed she became. 

Rinoa loved him. Oh, how she loved him. 

She fell hard and fast. He was everything she ever wanted in a partner. Committed, loyal, serious to a fault, and handsome. Painfully handsome. Even the scar Rival left on his face could not detract from his beauty. 

But now she knew the truth. This serene moment was tainted. 

The sexual satisfaction would never be good enough, now that she knew he was a liar. He gave her that ring as a gesture of control, not love. For reasons that still eluded her, he hid things. Lied. She would likely never know the truth now, but it didn’t matter.

There was an entire future to explore. Events and possibilities beyond human comprehension. The scope of it all would overwhelm the most fortuitous of minds. 

While she could see anyone or anything in the limitless futures afforded to her before compressing time, she still yearned for that which she thought would have been hers. 

Affection. Vulnerability. Satisfaction. 

Such emotions she had with Squall, before the euphoric memories were tainted by the truth.

The sorceress rode her emotions as one might coast ocean waves. In her world they were as tangible as scents to a bloodhound, and she pursued them with similar dedication. 

Each hormone and chemical carried a particular marker. Deconstructing human emotion to chemical equations did not dehumanize them. In fact, it made them stronger. Accepting the sorceress’ true powers unfolded every facet of the human experience. Weaving magic within the chemical bonds created an addicting dependency she planned to spend eternity soaking in… If only she could tap the right source.

To Rinoa’s surprise, a chain of future events leading to the exact blend of adoration and lust she needed were close at hand. Confusion and sadness, laced with desire and contentment, followed by anticipation, culminated to this particular memory. 

It left her stunned. No matter how many times the sorceress promised the realization of her deepest desires, Rinoa was shocked to witness it. She first thought it couldn’t be real—a trick of the sorceress, or a figment of her imagination—but it was as real as every other moment encapsulated within her spell. 

Rinoa’s body, nude as the day she was born, except for a strange metallic bracelet on her left wrist. She had aged in the time gap. Twelve months, three days, six hours, and forty seconds from when she met Seifer at the apartment, to be exact. 

And yet Quistis seemed… younger. Unburdened by years of trauma and guilt weighing her down. Rinoa had seen her naked in the time they lived together, but not like this. Bright with excitement and unencumbered elation. Still serious and shy, but happy.

Even more startling was her carefree disposition as they laid down on her bed. Naked. Making love. 

Rinoa did something she had yet to try. She inserted herself into memory. Her consciousness transplanted into her future self. Every sensation belonged to her. Quistis’ lips were unbearably soft. Her tongue, velvet. Her scratches were gentle and somehow possessive.

Rinoa had never been with a woman before compressing time. Now she realized she had been with a woman, this particular woman, many times. 

This, however. 

This was the first time.

“Just like that… Keep going.” 

Body snatching one’s self was a queer, indescribable experience. Rinoa felt every jolt of pleasure and every wave of uncertainty, while also keeping her present mind. She merged with herself enough to be immersed in the body, while remaining separated enough to observe the ebb and flow of compressed time. 

Quistis’ cheeks turned an ever darker shade of red. Rinoa allowed herself to fully digest the depths of her attraction to the older woman. Squall’s beauty made her heartache. But reflecting on Quistis’ exquisite features brought her joy. Joy and unbearable carnal cravings, which were far easier to admit to herself in the security of her world after knowing the attraction was mutual, while submerged in a future where the two of them were lovers.

Rinoa’s panting instructions were heeded by her nervous student. Pleasure mounted swiftly, responding to her desperate need for release. It didn’t matter that Quistis was unskilled with pleasing a woman. Her presence and desire were more than enough to erupt the dormant hormones now bursting inside of her. 

Rinoa’s face was buried in the crook of Quistis’ neck. Her sweat smelled much different than Squall’s. The scent of her own arousal was not lost to Rinoa, yet it was laced with that of her lover. The smells and the sweet way Quistis stared and blushed and stroked her made it all that much faster and explosive. 

The rush of oxytocin trembled her limbs and scrambled her mind in the best possible way. She moaned without abandon into the crook of Quistis’ neck. In her weakened state she clung to Quistis as best she could. The distaste left by Squall’s betrayal was absent, leaving her with an unquantifiable surge of emotion. 

This was the eternal fantasy she had forsaken her life for. To forget the pain and heartache of the natural world. She was the mistress of this universe. 

Why shouldn’t she make full use of this curse she never asked for? What was wrong with spending eternity wrapped in the soft embrace of a lover? Wasn’t it the least she deserved for wasting her life as an unwitting pawn? 

A blip appeared in her sheer ecstasy. An intruder… but a welcomed one.

Rinoa stared through the woman in her arms to the present version; somehow alive inside of a fiery cocoon, traveling through time compression.

Shocked blue eyes pierced through her shield, grappling with the reality of what she was watching. 

Rinoa wondered how much she knew, or could even fathom. How long had Quistis wandered through time? Did she have any concept of what was happening around her? 

“Quistis?”

\----

Quistis focused on her body, laying nude on the ivory sheets, with Rinoa’s body firmly pressed into hers. The brown eyes she remembered had returned, now glazed in what could only be described as post-coital glaze. One of many emotions Quistis had heard enough about, but never thought she would experience for herself. 

Until now, when the proof of concept was staring straight into her soul.

Quistis concentrated on her body, facing away from her, into Rinoa’s embrace. She could not see her face; only her disarrayed hair tickling the bedsheets. Unsure of exactly what she was doing, she willed herself there, inside of the perfect portrait. 

Rich brown eyes stared into hers. Quistis became fully aware of the fingernails clutched into her back and the leg wrapped around her waist. Her fingers were still inside of Rinoa’s warm and welcoming embrace. 

She should have been mortified. But this version of herself was elated and downright addicted to the high she had given Rinoa, and Quistis couldn’t override it. It emboldened her. 

“Come back with me. Please,” Quistis whispered, even though there was no one else present.

“This is all I want.” Rinoa’s voice cracked. “To be with you. Like this.”

The confession, amidst lovemaking, revealed a part of herself she believed to be dead. The emotions Quistis never understood, and the way they manifested themselves over the time Quistis knew Rinoa, were now as vibrant as the phoenix wings sheltering them. 

Much to her chagrin, Quistis could feel her body now. She was warm, coated in Rinoa’s essence and heat, and absolutely floating. But she only had one chance to fix this. If she couldn’t convince Rinoa to abandon the safety of her magic, and return to the real world, then this would be it. 

The beginning and the end was here, in time compression. 

Now that she was reunited with Rinoa, she understood the appeal. They could spend eternity here, experiencing nothing but bliss. 

Alluring as the prospect was, Quistis could not let more people die. She had only survived the experience because of the phoenix ring… To allow possessed Rinoa in the physical realm to consume the universe into her fantasy was not an option.

Quistis pulled Rinoa closer. With her free hand, she cupped Rinoa’s cheek. She wanted a future with Rinoa. This future. An inconceivable future... until it was staring her in the face. 

“Then let’s earn this future. Together.” 

Rinoa startled. She seemed unsure. Or unconvinced? 

Quistis didn’t know what else to say. Words were never her strong suit, unless she was using them to describe mathematics. Her brain felt addled after her trip through Rinoa’s distorted time loop. 

“I never wanted to hurt anyone.” Tears welled, threatening to spill over. “I was just so tired.”

“I know.” Quistis tried to soothe her. She stroked the ebony locks as she had so many times before. “I never should have left you. I’m sorry.”

“Edea’s research said every sorceress has a Knight… It wasn’t Squall. Or Seifer.” Scared fingers laced through her hair. “It was you.”

The touch elicited a sigh. Quistis was not entirely sure what Rinoa meant. But if she wanted a protector, even if it was to protect Rinoa from herself, Quistis would be that person. She would be Rinoa’s Knight.

Affirmation came in the form of a kiss. As their lips met, Quistis felt her heart soar. The wings surrounding them unfurled in a majestic display of infernal magic. Rinoa pulled herself closer. She tasted of comfort and chocolate. Magic and excitement. The electricity that shocked Quistis when they first met sent shivers down her spine. 

The phoenix cawed above them, acknowledging the birth of their new life together.


End file.
